










f. H.^SHACKBLFORP 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
•gfR 14 6 - 

Chap, Copyright No. 

Shell 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



August 15th, 1896. 

ANNOUNCEMENT 



United States History 

New Volume of Evolution of Empire Series. 

BY MARY PLATT PARMELE. 



"Nothing could be more timely than this con- 
cise and yet comprehensive story of the growth 
and development of the United States contained 
in this book. It carries one swiftly over the 
four centuries ; from the pre-Columbian era into 
the very lap of the present, and is a fitting suc- 
cessor to the preceding numbers of the series" — 
(Germany, France, and England.) 

"These are essentially readers' histories ; yet 
while not intended as text books, the interest is 
so great, and the story so complete and graphic 
that no text books can better impart the informa- 
tion contained in them." 

Price of each volume, postpaid, 75 cents. 
Set of four vols., $2.50 net, postpaid. 



THE GREAT JEW 



AND 



THE GREAT GERMAN 



OR 



FROM PAUL TO LUTHER 



A HISTORICAL STUDY 



BY 



F. H. SHACKELFORD 

SEP 24 W 




New York 
WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISON 

No. 59 Fifth Avenue 



All rights reserved 



V. 






^ 



• ; 



S 



S & 



Copyright, 1896 

BY 

WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISON 



PREFACE. 

The long reach of time, crowded with momentous 
events and movements, which stretches between the 
Great Jew and the Great German, renders it impossi- 
ble for men and women who live amidst the press and 
stress of business, and the absorbing and daily recur- 
ring cares of life, to acquire a clear and connected 
knowledge of the important links in the long and 
knotted chain of events, which brought Western Eu- 
rope from barbarism, and made of her, and through 
her of America, leaders in the van-guard of human 
progression. Therefore this little book goes forth as 
a convenient treasure-house of knowledge, in which 
may be found consecutively traced, the founding, and 
the formative period of Christianity, its lines of relig- 
ious and civil development, and its deformative period, 
together with its reformative period — The .Reforma- 
tion. 

The religion of all people, lies at the root of their 
civilization and subsequent culture ; and the fact that 
Europe and America lead the nations of the world, is 
to be mainly attributed to the divine vitality of Chris- 
tianity, which notwithstanding the manifold degen- 
eracies and backslidings of Christendom, has still 
guided Christian nations onward to a purer and higher 
humanity. 

Under the blessing of God, may this little book 
prove helpful to thousands of readers. 

Baltimore, Md. THE AUTHOR. 

(?) 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAET I. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE APOSTOLIC CALL — THE TRIBAL NUMBER, BROKEN 
THROUGH JUDAS ISCARIOT, RESTORED THROUGH THE 
ELECTION OF MATTHIAS. 

CHAPTER II. 

SAUL OF TARSUS— A GLIMPSE OF HIS EARLY LIFE— HIS CON- 
VERSION. 

CHAPTER III. 

saul's retirement and preparation for his great 
life-work — public ministry — change of name. 

CHAPTER IV. 

FIRST CHURCH COUNCIL, HELD IN JERUSALEM, ST. JAMES 
PRESIDING — DECREE OF THE COUNCIL — LABORS AND 
PERILS OF ST. PAUL. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE SCHOLARLY PAUL IN CLASSIC ATHENS — THE AREOPA- 
GUS—CONTINUED LABORS— TUMULT IN EPHESUS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

ENVY AND JEALOUSY PROMPT FALSE CHARGES AGAINST THE 
GREAT APOSTLE — HE GOES TO JERUSALEM TO SET HIM- 
SELF RIGHT WITH THE MOTHER CHURCH — BROUGHT BE- 
FORE ROMAN GOVERNORS — VOYAGE TO ROME — IMPRISON- 
MENT, TRIAL, ACQUITTAL. 

CHAPTER VII. 

PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF ST. PAUL — MEDALLION FIND AT 
HERCULANEUM. 

(9) 



10 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL, THE FOUNTAIN HEAD OF CHRIS- 
TIAN PHILOSOPHY— CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT. 



PAET II. 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH, ONE HOUSEHOLD IN THE FAITH — 
* DIRE PERSECUTIONS UNDER PAGAN EMPERORS— CONSTAN- 
TINE — OUTWARD PEACE TO THE CHURCH — INWARD DIS- 
CORD AND BITTERNESS— THE FAMOUS COUNCIL OF NIC^E. 

CHAPTER X. 

SEAT OF EMPIRE REMOVED TO CONSTANTINOPLE— THE BISHOP 
OF ROME ACQUIRES GREATER INFLUENCE IN AFFAIRS OF 
STATE — GROWING DESIRE IN THE WESTERN CHURCH 
FOR A DEFINITE CONSTITUTION. 

CHAPTER XL 

THE EARLY MONKS, THEIR INDUSTRY AND FRUGALITY — MON- 
ASTIC AND CATHEDRAL SCHOOLS — MONASTERIES GROW 
RICH, IDLENESS AND DEGENERACY ENSUE — EFFORTS 
FOR REFORM— CHRISTIANITY, THE MAINSPRING OF THE 
RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL SUPERIORITY OF WESTERN EU- 
ROPE—THE VENERABLE BEDE— CHARLEMAGNE. 

CHAPTER XII. 

ERIGENA SCOTUS— HIS EXPOSITION OF CHRISTIAN PHILOSO- 
PHY — ALFRED THE GREAT. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE CRUSADES — PETER THE HERMIT — BERNART. OF CLAIR- 
VAUX — GROWTH OF PAPAL POWER— MENDICANT MONKS-- 
COURT OF THE INQUISITION ESTABLISHED. 

CHAPTER XIV, 

PAPAL COURT REMOVED TO AVIGNON— WARS BETWEEN PAPAL 
FACTIONS — SPIRITUAL DEGENERACY — CIVIL PROSPECTS 
BRIGHTEN — HANSEATIC LEAGUE — SPANISH ARABS- 
ROGER BACON. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTEK XV. 

THE INTELLECTUAL HORIZON BRIGHTENS IN ITALY, FRANCE, 
ENGLAND AND GERMANY — WYCLIFFE TRANSLATES THE 
BIBLE INTO ENGLISH. 



PART III. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING — GREAT DISCOVERIES AND IN- 
DENTIONS— -COPERNICUS— COLUMBUS — THE WORLD'S MAS- 
TER ART — PRINTING. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

SIR THOMAS MORE — ERASMUS — TURBULENCE IN ROME— POPE 
NICHOLAS V. — WICKEDNESS INCARNATE— SIXTUS IV— IN- 
NOCENT VIII. — ALEXANDER VI. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

ROBERT GREATHEAD, BISHOP OF LINCOLN, THE MORNING 
STAR OF THE REFORMATION — JOHN WYCLIFFE, HIS SON 
IN THE GOSPEL — DR. MARTIN LUTHER — POPE LEO X. — 
CONFERENCE AT AUGSBURG. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE DIET OF WORMS — THE ELECTOR, FREDERIC THE WISE— 
THE KNIGHT GEORGE, PRISONER IN THE FORTRESS OF 
WARTBURG. 

CHAPTER XX. 

LUTHER TRANSLATES THE BIBLE INTO GERMAN — CHARAC- 
TERISTICS OF LUTHER — ULRICH ZWINGLI. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

ABBEY OF EINSIEDLEN— ZWINGLI CALLED TO ZURICH— PUB- 
LIC CONFERENCES IN ZURICH. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

THE SWISS REFORMATION, AN AUTHORIZED NATIONAL MOVE- 
MENT — THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES CONDEMNED, THE MASS 
ABOLISHED — MONASTERIES SUPPRESSED— YOUNG AND 
ROBUST MONKS MUST LEARN TRADES. 



12 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

UNION OF REFORMED CANTONS — CIVIL WAR — LAMENTED 
DEATH OF ULRICH ZWINGLI— JOHN CALVIN, HEAD OF THE 
REFORMED CHURCH OF GENEVA. 

CHAPTER XXIY. 

THEOCRATIC GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED IN GENEVA— CIVIL 
TROUBLES— CALVIN'S PERSONAL COURAGE— SERVETUS. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

REFORM MOVEMENT IN FRANCE— PRINCE OF CONDE, ADMIRAL 
COLIGNY, THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE, AND DUCHESS OF 
FERRARA, LEADERS IN THE MOVEMENT— HENRY OF NA- 
VARRE, CROWNED HENRY IV. OF FRANCE, ISSUES THE 
EDICT OF NANTES — REFORMERS PROTECTED — FATAL 
REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES, BY LOUIS XIV. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

ENGLISH REFORMATION — CARDINAL WOLSEY — SUPPRESSION 
OF THE MONASTERIES— ARCHBISHOP CRANMER— CHURCH 
CONVOCATIONS— SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENG- 
LAND FROM THE CHURCH OF ROME— BISHOP'S BIBLE— 
TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT, IN ENGLISH. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

DEATH OF HENRY VIII. — THE KINGLY BOY, EDWARD VI. — 
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER — BLOODY MARY. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH— LIBERTY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF—PAPAL 
PLOT TO ASSASSINATE THE QUEEN, CROWN MARY OF 
SCOTLAND, AND PLACE ENGLAND AT THE FEET OF THE 
POPE — CARDINAL OF LORRAINE — DUKE OF GUISE. 



PART IV. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE IMPORTANT REPUBLIC OF FLORENCE — DANTE — COSMO 
DI MEDICI— A PIONEER OF THE RENAISSANCE, AND CHIEF 
RULKR— FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 13 

CHAPTER XXX. 

POPE SIXTHS IV.— PLOT AGAINST THE DI MEDICI, HATCHED 
IN ROME. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION HURLED AGAINST FLORENCE— 
"LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT," WISE AND LIBERAL 
RULER> LEADER IN THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING, FRIEND 
AND PATRON OF ARTISTS AND MEN OF LETTERS — SAVONA- 
ROLA, PROPHET-PRIEST, PRIOR OF SAN MARCO. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

SAVONAROLA, SUPREME RULER OF FLORENCE— HIS AUSTERI- 
TIES BRING HIM IN CONFLICT WITH POPE AND PEOPLE— 
HIS ARREST — SUFFERINGS — TERRIBLE DEATH. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

SAVONAROLA, A HARBINGER OF THE REFORMATION, THOUGH 
NARROW AND MONKISH IN HIS REFORMS — HIS CLAIM TO 
THE PROPHETIC OFFICE. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

MICHAEL ANGELO — THE ART KING — HIS GREAT WORKS- 
DEATH AND FUNERAL HONORS. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

MACHIAVELLI — HISTORIAN OF FLORENCK — FATHER OF 
MODERN HISTORY. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The epistles of St. Paul have ever been a favorite 
theme with Christian writers, and every year adds to 
the already voluminous literature on this subject, 
which is mainly polemical. And the life of St. Paul 
has been written out as fully as the materials would 
allow by many able writers. But the reader of this 
little volume will find in it the salient points of the 
great man's character and career succinctly drawn and 
harmoniously grouped. The general reader needs 
nothing more to exhibit to him "the chiefest of the apos- 
tles " in all his sublime moral and mental grandeur. 

Throughout the work, extending from the first to 
the sixteenth century, the historic continuity is clearly 
preserved, and the inherent power of Christianity to 
elevate humanity to higher planes of life, notwithstand- 
ing all the persecution, enmity and unbelief of ungodly 
men, without and within the church, is traced with the 
earnestness of strong conviction, and with a fervor of 
spirit which none but one familiar with the subject, 
both spiritually and intellectually, could exhibit. 

Throughout the book the author never hesitates to 
express personal convictions pretty strongly, though 
full and impartial justice is done to every character 
and event which it was necessary to introduce. From 
the beginning to the end, evidence is everywhere dis- 
played of large sympathies and discriminating judg- 
ment. 

(15) 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

The brief parallel run between St. Paul and Luther 
is thoughtful and just; every student of history must 
discern many striking* points of similarity in the char- 
acter and career of the great Apostle and the illustri- 
ous Reformer. 

Taken as a whole, this modest little volume is a 
goodly array of carefully culled fruit, of tempting va- 
riety and richness, and is invitingly set before us on a 
clean porcelain platter. 

The book is specially adapted to Sunday-schools 
and to the majority of lay readers; its pages are not 
loaded down with references to learned authorities, by 
which the facts stated may be verified ; instead, the 
author moves smoothly along the line of investigation, 
authenticating facts as they are stated, thereby saving 
the reader both the labor and the time necessary to 
hunt up authorities, had he the inclination to do so.' 

We heartily commend this little book to the gen- 
eral public. Its style is pure, simple and elegant, its 
historical correctness accords with the best authorities 
known to literature. And above all, we commend it 
for the intelligent apprehension of the nature and in- 
fluence of the gospel of Christ, which pervades its 
pages. 

J. G. Moeeis, D. D. 



THE JEW AND THE GEKMAN, 

OR 

FROM PAUL TO LUTHER. 



PART L 



CHAPTER I. 

The Tribal Number. 

As the aroma of flowers lingers in the perfume- 
scented air long- after the flowers have perished, even 
so does the influence of once deeply-rooted beliefs 
linger in human speech and usage long after the be- 
liefs have perished. This may be clearly seen in the 
far-reaching influence of that very ancient and world- 
wide belief in numbers, or rather in the inherent power 
of certain numbers to affect for good or ill the destiny 
of man. In varying degrees this influence may be 
traced up the ascent of the ages from the remote past 
even unto this present time. 

In sacred scripture, particularly in the books of the 
Old Bible, the frequent recurrence of the numbers 
seven, ten, twelve and forty, comes to the thoughtful 
reader as a voice from out the ages when the human 
race was young. And in the fullness of time, when 
the Blessed Master entered upon his public ministry,, 
he saw fit, in choosing his disciples, to honor Israel's 
tribal number. And those twelve chosen men enjoyed 



18 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

the inestimable privilege of daily and intimate asso- 
ciation with Jesus. Day by day, for the space of three 
years, those twelve men listened to His gracious words 
of life,— and they witnessed His wonderful works. And 
most of them lived to see the middle wall of partition, 
which had shut off the Gentile from the privileges of 
the Jew, broken down through the faithful preaching 
of the gospel of Christ, the good tidings which 
abolished the law of commandments contained in 
ordinances, the good tidings of the common brother- 
hood of man, of the all-fatherhood of Him who is no 
respecter of persons. And in the gospel of Christ, 
they saw, as we may see, an index finger pointing be- 
yond the Jordan of death to the unseen Kingdom of 
Heaven, the complement of the Kingdom of Heaven 
which is at hand. 

The daily life of Jesus was a humble life, his habits 
were simple, his wants were few, and those few were 
easily supplied. Possibly the perfect content of 
Jesus with his lowly manner of life was such a bitter 
disappointment to the national ambition of Judas 
Iscariot that the loss of his belief in Jesus as the re- 
storer of the throne of David, and consequently of all 
hope of personal aggrandizement, led him to betray 
his Master. An ancient tradition states that when 
Judas bargained with the chief priests it was with the 
understanding that Jesus should be restrained and 
silenced by arrest and imprisonment, but was not to 
be personally injured. Be that as it may, it is certain 
that the guilty man was unspeakably wretched when 
he learned the fatal result of his crime. Instead of 
merely arrest and detention by imprisonment, the 
Master was led in the cold night before bigoted Jew- 
ish judges; exposed to the senseless fury of a fickle 
mob, to the blind scorn of mockers, and to the awful 
sentence of crucifixion on Calvary. The miserable man 
could bear up no longer. St, Matthew says, "When he 
saw that he (the Master) was condemned, he repented 



TEE TRIBAL NUMBER. 19 

himself." The wretched man went to the chief priests 
and casting* down the thirty pieces of silver, and con- 
demning himself as the betrayer of innocent blood, 
went forth in such agony of soul, that falling head- 
long, in his endeavor to hang himself, he burst asunder 
in the midst and all his bowels gushed out. Repent- 
ant, miserable Judas ! 

The place which Judas by transgression lost, fervent- 
minded, impulsive Peter sought to fill from among 
those who had companied with them all the time the 
Lord Jesus went in and out among them. 

In the days of their bereavement the little church 
was wont to gather for prayer in an upper cham- 
ber in the city of Jerusalem. It was to one of these 
gatherings that Peter submitted his proposition. It 
was received with favor, and prayer was offered and 
lots were cast, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he 
was numbered among the twelve. The tribal number, 
honored of the Master, was again complete ; but no 
further mention is made of Matthias, though he may 
have been a faithful and efficient apostle of Christ; 
had it been otherwise, it would doubtless have been 
mentioned, for the sacred writers are not chary in 
speaking of the short-comings of their brethren ; they 
tell their story simply and plainly. 



20 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTEE II. 

Saul of Tarsus. 

Outside of the sacred number, and not until some 
three years later, is seen in the church the great light 
of the apostolic age. For him no lots were cast ; he 
was called and sent forth by the risen Jesus, and he 
responded to his call with whole-hearted faith, a faith 
that to the end never faltered. 

Saul of Tarsus, The Chosen Vessel, received his 
peril-fraught commission directly from the risen 
Saviour. And by his labors, instant in season and out 
of season, both among Jews and Gentiles, he lifted the 
church of Christ above a local faction, or segment of 
the Jewish church, and started her on her path of 
world-conquest, a path on which she has continued to 
move from that day to this, though the pathway has 
at times been devious, even retrograde, but in the 
main it has ever been upward, and the church of 
Christ has been gathering into her fold from among 
all the tribes and nations of men. 

A.memoir of the early life of Saul of Tarsus would 
be a valuable addition to biographical literature, but 
unfortunately the thick veil of oblivion hides away all 
reliable information on the subject. He was probably 
an only son, as a brother is nowhere mentioned; a sis- 
ter and her son are mentioned. And it is equally 
probable, as his life from his youth up was spent in 
the great liberal school of Hillel, that his father was 
a man of wealth, as well as a Eoman citizen. St. 
Paul's inherited right of Eoman citizenship often stood 
him in good stead; and his lack of means of support 
compelling him to work at his trade of tent-making 



SAUL OF TARSUS. 21 

for his daily bread, rather than be chargeable to any, 
is an indication, if not a proof, that he had been dis- 
inherited. His father was no doubt keenly disap- 
pointed in the son whose learning and talents were 
already beginning to bear the fruit of high renown, 
when he suddenly turned his back upon the gathering 
honors of the world by identifying himself with the 
despised sect of the Nazarenes. That he had thereby 
lost all the gains of this world, is made clear in his 
letter to the Philippians; he writes, "What things 
were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ." 
And again, " I count all things to be loss for the ex- 
cellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, 
for whom I suffered the loss of all things." Tlie loss 
of all things necessarily includes not only his patri- 
mony, but the high position he had attained among 
his people, and the yet higher reach that lay before 
him. But all these things, home, family ties, opu- 
lence, fame, and high worldly position, he counted but 
refuse, that he might gain Christ, not having the 
righteousness which is of the law, but that w T hich is 
through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of 
God by faith. 

Jewish children were not received as responsible 
members of the great national church until after they 
had attained the age of twelve years ; having reached the 
required age, the father was accounted in duty bound 
to have his children enrolled as responsible subjects of 
the Law. And as Saul lived in Jerusalem from his 
youth up, it is a legitimate conclusion that shortly 
after the promising boy had reached the lawful age, 
his father took him to Jerusalem, to be duly inducted 
into the church, and to place him in the famous school 
of Hillel, to be brought up at the feet of the wise 
Gamaliel — grandson of Hillel the founder, and his 
worthy successor. 

The evidence in proof of the fact that St. Paul went 
to Jerusalem at an early age, and remained there 
2 



22 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

througli his youth, and up to early manhood, may be 
found in his words before Festus and Agrippa : " My 
manner of life from my youth up, which was among 
mine own nation, at Jerusalem, know all the Jews." 

When the boy had grown into the young man, 
crowned with the honors of that famous liberal school, 
so wisely chosen by his father, he returned to his home 
at Tarsus, in the exulting strength of gifted and learned, 
young manhood, zealous for the honor of the Law, and 
for the glory of the God of his fathers. 

Saul's return to Tarsus must have been previous to 
the entrance of Christ upon his public ministry, as the 
apostle speaks of having seen Jesus only in visions, 
therefore he could not have been living in Jerusalem 
during the three years of Christ's public ministry. 
Those three years were probably spent by the young 
man in Tarsus, partly in learning his craft of tent- 
making. All young Jews were required to learn a 
trade, the sons of the rich as well as the sons of the 
poor; a practical proof of Hebrew loyalty to their 
belief in the dignity as well as the necessity of labor. 
But in larger part he doubtless spent his precious 
time in laboring with fervent zeal, and vehement 
eloquence, to purge the church of the God of Israel 
from the defiling influence of Hellenizing teachers. 

The growing fame of the young defender of the 
faith in Tarsus may have induced the Sanhedrim to 
offer to the young man a seat in their august court, 
and to take the necessary steps to carry out their 
offer. Tradition says that Saul of Tarsus was a mem- 
ber of the Sanhedrim. The Jewish law required that 
the members of the Sanhedrim should be elderly men 
and heads of families, but under the Herods, the law 
was loosely held ; the high priesthood could be bought 
by any Levite who had sufficient money. Under such 
a state of affairs, it is not surprising that a man of 
distinguished ability, though young and unmarried, 
should be chosen a member of the Sanhedrim. But 
nothing is known particularly of Saul of Tarsus until 



SAUL OF TARSUS. 23 

lie appears as the fierce persecutor of Christians. Not 
content with persecuting- the Christians of Jerusalem, 
he sought from the Sanhedrim a commission to extend 
his persecuting fury even to a distant Syrian city. 

The fierce persecuting- spirit which took possession 
of the young- man was foreign to his own nature, and 
in direct opposition to the liberal teaching- of Gama- 
liel; it was the outward expression of intense inward 
agitation. 

As an eloquent and over-zealous defender of the an- 
cient faith, Saul may have had occasional disputa- 
tions with preachers of the Christian faith, but most 
probably met no equal in the contest, until he met 
the gifted and intrepid Stephen. 

The last great and fearless, but unfinished speech 
of Stephen, must have strongly moved the heart of 
the young Pharisee, and opened his spiritual e3^es, to 
see as he had never seen before; that Abraham, 
Moses, and the ceremonial law led up to better things 
in Jesus ; to see the hallowed past in its rightful rela- 
tion of father to the present. 

These new and disturbing thoughts and feelings 
wrought upon the young man until they drove him to 
a pitch of spiritual desperation, under the dread fear 
of his perfect orthodoxy being imperiled by the 
haunting power of Stephen's profound and fearless 
apology; this dread fear urged him on, with mad 
zeal, to root out a heresy which was knocking for en- 
trance even at his own stout heart. But he could not 
silence the voice within ; the conflict waxed sorer, until 
it was stilled by the voice of the Master, without 
the gate of Damascus, confirming the truth which 
Stephen had taught. 

The persecutions of Saul in Jerusalem had been 
carried out as soon as resolved upon, but now, being 
duly commissioned by the Sanhedrim to seek out and 
bring bound to Jerusalem all Christians in the dis- 
tant city of Damascus, the delay, occasioned by a long 



24 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

journey, conies between purpose and execution, giv- 
ing opportunity for recollection and self-communion. 
No doubt the speech of Stephen came out from the 
recesses of his memory, and forced itself upon his 
attention; nor could he by the most adroit exercise of 
his fine logical power overthrow Stephen's conclusive 
line of argument, neither could he refuse to consider 
the holy heroism of the man, who, under the fearful 
torture of death bj^ stoning, prayed for his murderers. 

Such recollections must have intensified Saul's fierce 
struggle against a sense of self-condemnation, however 
much he might strive to fortify himself on the impreg- 
nable ground of duty to the God of his fathers. Great 
blows must have fallen on his heart, hurting more 
sorely than those of the goads on unruly oxen. 

Saul was doubtless oblivious to the discomforts of 
his desert travel, unmindful of the ardent rays of the 
blazing Syrian sun ; and from the nature of the case 
the journey must have been a silent one to Saul, for a 
mind oppressed and ill at ease is not a communicative 
mind. 

As they near Damascus, city of surpassing beauty, 
behold ! fearful lights begin to flash about the weary 
travellers, and suddenly, from out of heaven blazes a 
great light, which pales the noon-day sun; Saul and 
his companions fall prostrate with their faces to the 
earth; an awful, unintelligible sound stuns the ears of 
the men with Saul, but to his consciousness the awful 
sound came articulate and clear, — the voice of the Son 
of Man. But in that dread hour, Saul does not yield 
without question: " Who art thou, Lord?" The ear of 
his spirit is open, he hears in answer: "I am Jesus, 
whom thou persecutest." 

Saul's companions arose from the earth and stood 
astounded ; he too arose and opened his eyes, but saw 
nothing, — he was blind. The men with him led him by 
the hand into* Damascus, and for three days he re- 
mained in his blindness, without meat or drink, in the 
house of Judas. 



PUBLIC MINISTRY— CHANGE OF NAME. 2 



D 



CHAPTER III. 

Public Ministry, Change of Name. 

Those three clays were epoch-marking* days, clays 
which brought to birth The Chosen Vessel to bear the 
name of the Lord "before the Gentiles and Kings, and 
the Children of Israel." 

In the book of the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke 
records in graphic detail the incidents connected with 
the visit of Ananias to Saul, of Saul's recovery of sight, 
and of his baptism. 

An entirely new direction was given to Saul's life 
through his conversion to Christianity. The bigoted 
Pharisaism in which he had striven to excel his breth- 
ren was uprooted and cast out; his fervid zeal for the 
traditions of his fathers, gave place to an earnest desire 
to obtain a clearer apprehension of the great truths of 
the Gospel of Christ. To a mind like Saul's, a clearer 
and fuller knowledge of the faith he had embraced was 
a necessity, and would necessarily include a period of 
retirement from the bustle and business of life, and 
that such was the case, may be learned from his own 
words. He says, ce I conferred not with flesh and blood, 
neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were 
apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia." The 
context favors the conclusion that he remained in Ara- 
bia about three years; a period of solitary preparation 
for his great life work, — through meditation, prayer, 
and careful study of all the records he could obtain of 
the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. That such rec- 
ords were written very early in the history of the 
church is evident from the opening chapter of the Gos- 
pel according to St. Luke ; and tradition tells that St. 



26 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

Bartholomew gave to the church in India an original 
Hebrew document, containing- the discourses of Christ, 
written out by St. Matthew. 

In that age, wherever Greek culture had gained a 
footing, historical composition was an important art, 
and generally practiced. And as Ananias was a promi- 
nent man in the Damascan church, he would most proba- 
bly be in possession of those precious documents on 
which the future development of the new doctrine 
must mainly depend, and he would be happy to lend 
them to the young man, whom he knew^to be a Chosen 
Vessel of the Lord 

After his long sojourn in Arabia, Saul returned to 
Damascus, and at once entered the field of the Chris- 
tian ministry, though he was desirous to go up to 
Jerusalem and meet Peter and other fathers in the 
Christian faith. In writing to the church in Galatia, 
after referring to his calling to preach Christ among the 
Gentiles, to his sojourn in Arabia, and to his return to 
Damascus, he adds, "I went up to Jerusalem to be- 
come acquainted with Cephas" — Peter. On that visit 
he seems to have met only Peter and James. 

Saul may have felt specially drawn at that time to 
St. Peter from having learned that, like himself, Peter 
had been sent to declare the gospel to the Gentiles, 
and had been divinely taught to call nothing common 
or unclean which God had cleansed. 

When Saul began his public ministry in Damascus 
by expounding and defending the faith which he had 
so bitterly persecuted, the Jews in Damascus were 
astounded. The story of his persecuting commission, 
and of his blindness, had been current news three years 
before, and hearing nothing further from him, they 
regarded him as dead to the active affairs of life. His 
restoration to sight was a matter amongst Christians, 
and they had been taught through persecution to keep 
their own counsel. The Jews were probably of the 
opinion that Saul's sudden stroke of blindness had alone 



PUBLIC MINISTRY— CHANGE OF NA3IE. 27 

prevented his carrying* out the commission of the San- 
hedrim, and hence they were astounded at his reappear- 
ance with restored sight, and preaching the gospel he 
had persecuted unto the death. But their amazement 
soon turned into murderous wrath, and they took 
measures to kill him; but those measures were made 
known to the brethren, and being forewarned they 
were forearmed. His enemies, suspecting that he 
would try to make his escape from the city, watched 
the gates by day and by night to seize him, should 
he attempt to pass out. But friends, too, were on the 
alert, and some of them must have lived in a house 
built in or upon the wall, for while his enemies, w T ith 
murder in their hearts, were watching by night at the 
gates of the city, they, under the sheltering wing of 
that same night, let him down in a basket through a 
window in the w r all. 

When Saul assayed to join the company of disciples 
in Jerusalem, they shrank from him. It seemed a thing 
incredible that the fierce persecutor, whose very name 
was a terror to the people into whose homes he had 
entered to hale men and women to prison because 
they were followers of Jesus, should verily have 
become a fellow -disciple. But Barnabas had knowl- 
edge of the wonderful change which had been wrought 
in Saul, and he bore witness to the powerful teachings 
of Saul at Damascus in the name of Jesus. Then the 
disciples gladly received him into their fellowship, and 
he preached boldly in the name of Jesus, which again 
brought Jewish wrath on his devoted head, and they 
sought to slay him. Again he was saved by the 
brethren, who brought him down to Cesarea and sent 
him forth to Tarsus. 

Some time after, Barnabas sought him in Tarsus, 
and Saul returned with him to Antioch, and for the 
space of a year they labored in the church at Antioch, 
teaching much people. In the city of Antioch the 
term Christian was first applied to the disciples of 
Christ. 



28 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

The Antiochian church, learning- from the prophet 
Agabus and from others of the pressure of poverty 
on the churches of Judea, determined to send relief to 
the suffering brethren who dwelt in Judea. Every- 
man of the church contributed according to his ability, 
and the amount raised was sent to the elders by Bar- 
nabas and Saul. When they had finished their minis- 
trations they returned from Jerusalem, taking* with 
them John, whose surname was Mark. 

In the church at Antioch were certain prophets and 
teachers, among them Manaen, the foster brother of 
Herod the tetrarch. As these men ministered to the 
Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit spoke to them: 
"Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where- 
unto I have called them." When they had fasted and 
prayed they laid their hands on Barnabas and Saul, 
and thereafter sent them away. 

Thenceforth, in minute detail, St. Luke, in the Acts 
of the Apostles, records the carrying of the Gospel to 
the heathen, and Saul becomes the central figure, 
around whom a halo of glory gathers, growing brighter 
as the ages move on. 

After he enters upon his peculiar mission, of apos- 
tle to the Gentiles, we hear no more of Saul, but of 
Paul, which may have been a Gentile form of his 
Hebrew name; or, according to some traditions, the 
combined name, Saul Paulus, was given at his birth. 
Those traditions possess a certain force of evidence, 
it being most probable that a Hebrew-Roman name 
would be given to the son of a Hebrew-Roman citizen; 
and from remote antiquity it was not unusual to com- 
bine Hebrew and Gentile names, and after the Roman 
occupation of Judea, it was of common occurrence, 
Herod Agrippa, Simon Peter, and so on. 



FIRST CHURCH COUNCIL. 29 



CHAPTER IV. 

First Church Council. 

Did oar limits permit, it would be a labor of love to 
gather up the salient points on the first missionary 
journey of St. Paul to the Gentiles, and record some 
of his glowing* words, as, with enlightened zeal and 
sanctified eloquence, he taught to Jew and Gentile 
the truth as it is in Jesus ; proving to the Jews out 
of their own scriptures, even as Stephen had done, 
that the Mosaic Dispensation was the dispensation of 
preparation for the gospel of the Messiah, which he 
proclaimed. 

On the return of Paul and Barnabas to Antioch, 
they found the peace of the church deeply disturbed 
by teachers who imperfectly comprehended the Gos- 
pel of Christ ; and then, as later — for conceited igno- 
rance is ever arrogant and dogmatic — narrow, prece- 
dent-following teachers withstood the breadth and 
simplicity of the gospel of Christ, as preached by 
Paul. The dissension was carried so far as to render 
it necessary to refer the matter to the apostles and 
elders at Jerusalem. A commission, consisting of 
Paul, Barnabas and certain others, was sent to Jeru- 
salem to lay the matter before the mother church. 
When the commission reached Jerusalem, they were 
received of the church, the apostles, and the elders, to 
whom Paul and Barnabas declared all things which 
God had wrought by them ; but those of the church 
still devoted to the ceremonial law, insisted that it 
was necessary to observe the law of Moses, in order to 
be saved Bigotry is of one essence under all creeds 
and in all ages. 

Subsequently the apostles and elders came together 
to consider the matter. After much disputing, St. 
Peter declared unto them how he had been taught of 



30 THE JEW AND THE GER3IAN. 

God to put no difference between Jew and Gentile, de- 
ducing therefrom that it would be contrary to the 
will of God to put the yoke of the law on them, who 
had believed from among- the Gentiles. Amidst the 
silence of the assembly, Paul and Barnabas arose and 
recounted the thrilling scenes of Paphos, Perga 3 Lys- 
tra, Derbe, and other points in the journey they had 
but lately made. Their recital hushed all opposition; 
they sat down, and in the hush of dispute, St. James 
arose and gave sentence, " We trouble not them, who, 
from among the Gentiles, are turned to God ; we only 
require that they abstain from all pollution." 

According to tradition, St. James, in outward as- 
pect, was like unto an ancient prophet ; his features were 
austere, he wore a white linen ephod, and walked with 
unshodden feet, and his hair and beard were unshorn ; 
and he spoke with such earnest and commanding 
power that his sentence was the decree of the church. 

The decision of the council having ended the con- 
troversy, Barnabas and Paul — and chosen men sent 
with them — returned to Antioch, taking with them 
the decree of the council of Jerusalem, which guaran- 
teed to the churches a far-reaching Christian freedom. 
Based as the decree is on principles of universal ap- 
plication, it involved much more than relief from the 
pressure of any special rite or ceremony ; it was in- 
deed a charter of religious liberty to the young 
churches. 

After remaining a while in Antioch, Barnabas and 
Paul projected a second missionary journey, but the 
contention as to the reliability of Mark as a fellow- 
missionary waxed so sharp, they parted asunder. 
Barnabas took Mark and sailed unto Cyprus. Paul 
chose Silas, one of the chosen men sent from Jerusa- 
lem, and they went through Syria, Cilicia, and other 
countries, confirming the churches and adding to their 
numbers. 

At Lystra, the young Timothy, St. Paul's son in the 
gospel, joined him and Siias. After reaching Troas, 



FIEST CHURCH COUNCIL. 31 

it becomes evident from the narrative, that St. Luke 
joined the company, probably not only as fellow-mis- 
sionary, but also as the beloved physician, to care for 
the infirm health of St. Paul. 

Troas was classic-ground, but St. Paul was so pos- 
sessed, and absorbed by his great mission, that its 
classic interest lay in the dark back-ground ; his vision 
of the night reveals the deep workings of his soul. 
Straightway, St. Luke says, which must mean betimes 
in the morning, — Paul and his little company were seek- 
ing a vessel to convey them to the Macedonian shore. 

After a voyage of two days they landed at Neapolis, 
the seaport of Philippi, the chief city of that part of 
Macedonia, and a Roman colony. On the morning of 
the first Sabbath after their arrival in Philippi, St. 
Luke writes, " we went forth without the gate, by a 
river side, where we supposed there was a place of 
prayer, and we sat down and spake unto the women 
which were come together.*' Only women were gath- 
ered at that chosen place of prayer. The fact that not 
a man of the house of Jacob was present on the Sab- 
bath day, at the place chosen for the worship of the 
God of Israel, is sad to consider, and can only be ac- 
counted for as the result of an imperial edict issued 
shortly before, under which every man known to be a 
Jew was to be banished from Rome, and from her 
colonies. 

But among the women, the seed sown on that Sabbath 
day fell on good ground, and brought forth abundant 
fruit. Lydia, the first Christian convert in Europe, be- 
sought her teachers to come and abide in her house ; 
and from that household grew up the faithful church 
of Philippi, which once and again ministered to the 
wants of their father in Christ, when in a Roman dun- 
geon he was awaiting sentence of death. Some of the 
incidents of St. Paul's stay in Philippi are full of inter- 
est ; in that city lived the possessed maiden, who day 
after day followed the Christian teachers, declaring 



32 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

them to be servants of the Most High God, proclaim- 
ing- the way of salvation $ her continuous crying out 
touched the feeling heart of St. Paul, and in the name 
of Jesus he healed the pythonic madness of the maiden. 
To her masters, her frenzied soothsaying had brought 
much money, and the loss of their gain so angered 
them, that they dragged Paul and Silas into the mar- 
ket place, before the rulers of the city, on the utterly 
false charge of being disturbers of the peace ; where- 
upon the rulers ordered that they should be beaten 
with rods and then cast into prison, and their feet 
made fast in the stocks. 

Though bruised and sore from the cruel beating and 
in the most uncomfortable position, these brave, un- 
daunted men of God prayed and sang praises to God 
through the slowly passing watches of the night. 
Such strange and soothing sounds hushed the prison- 
ers into eager listening, but from this most unusual 
condition they were suddenly aroused by a dread con- 
vulsion of nature. Lo! the stillness of the midnight 
air is broken by the awful roar of a great earthquake, 
the foundations of the prison are shaken, the massive 
bolts fall out of place, the doors fly open, and every 
one's bands are loosed. 

The jailer, aroused from sleep by the terrible alarm, 
is yet more terrified at finding the prison doors open ; 
he draws his sword and is about to plunge it in his 
heart, supposing his prisoners had fled, when the loud 
voice of Paul assured him : " We are all here." 

Revulsion of feeling as a flood must have swept over 
that jailer. 

He called for lights, sprang in, and trembling from 
fear, fell before Paul and Silas. 

He took them the same hour of the night and 
brought them to his house, and washed their stripes, 
asking, "What must I do to be saved?" And they 
spoke the word of the Lord unto him, and to all that 
were in his house; meat was set before the bruised 



FIRST CHURCH COUNCIL. 33 

and hungry apostles, and the Philippian jailer rejoiced 
greatly with all his house, believing in God. 

When it was day the rulers sent, saying, "Let those 
men go." But St. Paul stands on his vantage ground 
of Roman citizenship. "Men who are Romans, uncon- 
demned, have been publicly beaten; they shall not 
cast us out privily, let them come and bring us out." 
The sergeants repeated these words to the rulers, and 
the petty rulers were afraid when they heard the pris- 
oners were Eomans. In that case they had set at 
naught the majesty of Roman law, and to violate that 
law was not only to risk place, but life. 

The rulers came and besought them, and when they 
brought them out they asked them to go away from 
the city. 

Paul and Silas went to the house of Lydia, and when 
they had seen the brethren and comforted them, they 
took their departure, going through Amphipolis and 
Apollonia, to Thessalonica, where for three Sabbaths 
St. Paul went into the synagogue and reasoned with 
the Jews. But the riot of a brutal mob caused the 
city to loose the blessing of his continued labors ; he 
left them by night, and journeyed to Berea. 

The Jews of Berea, who came within the circle of St. 
Paul's acquaintance, were of a higher order of mind 
and manner than those of Thessalonica ; the Berean 
Jews searched the scriptures to see if those things af- 
firmed by Paul were so. And in Berea many Greeks 
believed, and of chief women, not a few. But the nar- 
row and cruel bigotry of the Thessalonican Jews 
drove them to Berea, where they stirred up the multi- 
tude. 

The church, fearing violence to their beloved apostle, 
immediately sent him forth with brethren who were 
to accompany him as far as the sea. But these breth- 
ren did not leave him to embark alone, they made the 
vo3^age with him, saw him safely in Athens, where he 
intended to await the coming of Silas and Timothy 
from Berea. 



34 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTEE V. 

Paul in Athens. 

The scholarly Paul in Athens, — classic Athens, 
the most ancient and most renowned city of Greece, 
the mother of European Poetry, of Philosophy and 
of Art. Greek literature was not unknown to him, 
and the triumphs of Greek at*t were all about him : 
before him Avas the matchless Parthenon, and its 
magnificent statue of Athene, made of gold and 
ivory, and twenty-six cubits high. No doubt St. 
Paul had often to pat up his hand to shield his weak 
eyes from the dazzling" light flashing from the co- 
lossal and brilliant statue. Bufc his whole being 
was so absorbed in his great mission that the most 
perfect specimen of highest art failed to impress 
him as did the simple altar, To the Unknown God. 

Each day in the market place he taught and rea- 
soned with the Athenians and strangers, who 
thronged the public places, eager to tell or to hear 
some new thing. From among the philosophers 
some of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered 
him ; they desired to know of the doctrine more 
connectedly and* intelligent] y than they could learn 
in the market place, in the midst of the babbling 
crowd, so they took hold of him and brought him 
to the Areopagus. 

Though subject, Athens was shorn of her political 
greatness, yet the prestige of this famous Court was 
so great that the Areopagus continued to command 
the reverence of Athenians. 

St. Paul is placed in the midst of the Areopagus. 
He stands before* the august assembly with grave 
mien and dignified bearing; the assembly sits in 



PA UL IN A THENS. 35 

respectful silence to hear the setting forth of his 
strange doctrine. As is his wont, he motions with 
his hand and in quiet, clear, incisive tones begins 
by saying, " Ye men of Athens, in all things I per- 
ceive that ye are too religious, for as I passed along 
observing the many objects of your worship, I found 
an altar with the inscription, 'To the Unknown God. ' 
That unknown God whom ye worship in ignorance, 
Him declare I unto you. The God who dwelleth 
not in temples made with hands. The God who 
giveth. to all men life, breath, and all things need- 
ful ; the God who hath made of one blood every 
nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth. 
The God who draweth all men that they may feel 
after Him, and find Him, though He is not far from 
each one of us. " By the exquisite adaptation of his 
exordium he gently leads his hearers away from 
polytheism and follows it up by quoting from cer- 
tain of their own poets to prove that we are the off- 
spring of God ; and ho brings home the conclusion 
that beings conscious of feeling, of the power of 
thought, and of volition, should not esteem the God- 
head from whom they have their being, to be like 
unto gold or silver, or sculptured stone , the times 
of such ignorance had passed. The apostle pro- 
ceeds to speak of repentance, of righteousness, of 
judgment, and of the resurrection of the dead. 
When the skeptics heard of the resurrection of the 
dead they mocked, but the better part of the assem- 
bly said, " We will hear thee concerning this yet 
again." But there is no record of another audience 
of philosophers desiring to know of the doctrine he 
taught. 

Simple and brief as was the great speech on Mars 
Hill, it was seed sown on good ground , we read 
that certain men clave unto him, among whom was 
Dionysius the Areopagite. St. Paul's stay in 
Athens does not seem to have brought forth the like 



36 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

immediate results as in many other cities, but that 
it produced enduring* fruit we may learn from St. 
Origen, who speaks of a church in Athens as being- 
greatly praised in the vineyard of the Lord. And 
with Pastor Bungener we may say that '"the speech 
of St. Paul on Mars Hill, unfinished as it was, 
has nevertheless been a great page in the history of 
religion, of philosophy, and of humanity." 

From Athens St. Paul went to Corinth, a city so 
beautiful for situation it has been called " The Star 
of Hellas," and so great was its commerce it was 
also called "The Bride of the Sea," and a distin- 
guished modern writer speaks of Corinth as " The 
Vanity Fair of the Roman Empire. " In Corinth 
Timothy joined his beloved father in the gospel, 
and brought him welcome tidings of the faith and 
love of the Thessalonian church, to which church 
he had from Athens sent Timothy to establish and 
comfort the brethren concerning their faith. 

In Corinth St. Paul made his home with Aquila 
and Priscilla, Jews of Pontus, who under an edict 
of the Emperor Claudius had been banished from 
Home. Whether they were already Christians or 
were converted through St. Paul's ministry is not 
known, but it is known that subsequently Aquila 
was a zealous preacher of the gospel. The apostle 
numbers them both among his helpers in Christ. 
Aquila may have been a manufacturer of tents, and 
on being compelled to leave Borne chose Corinth for 
his abode on account of its sirperior business advan- 
tages, and the apostle, being of the same craft, lab- 
ored with him, that he might not be chargeable to 
any man. 

Corinth was the centre of trade and commerce to 
both the eastern and western portions of the Bom an 
Empire, and hence a church planted in Corinth 
would possess unusual facilities for extending its in- 
fluence to various parts of the Empire. 



PA UL IN A THEN8. 37 

St. Paul began laying the foundation of the Cor- 
inthian church by reasoning every Sabbath in the 
synagogue, until compelled to desist by the opposi- 
tion and blasphemy of the Jews. From henceforth 
he declares, "I will go unto the Gentiles." 

So exasperated were the Jews against him they 
seized him and brought him before the judgment 
seat of Gallio on the charge of persuading men to 
worship contrary to the law of Moses ; on hearing 
the charge Gallio was indignant, and drove the ac- 
cusers from the hall of judgment. He would have 
borne with them had they charged against St. Paul 
the most venial crime, or any infringement of civil 
law, but he was not minded to be a judge in a mat- 
ter which he regarded as a foolish Jewish supersti- 
tion. The Greeks vented their indignation by beat- 
ing Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue ; but 
Gallio, the Stoic, cared for none of these things. 

After remaining in Corinth for a year and a half 
St. Paul sailed into Syria, stopping only a day in 
Ephesus, being desirous to reach Jerusalem in time 
for the approaching feast. His visit must have 
been very brief. The record states, " He went up 
and saluted the church and went down to Antioch." 
Antioch was the parent church of the Gentile world. 
How long he remained in that city is not stated ; the 
record says, "He spent some time in Antioch, and 
departed, going through the region of Galatia and 
Phrygia in order, strengthening the brethren." 

Passing through the upper coasts, he came to 
Ephesus, where he found twelve men who had re- 
ceived only the baptism of John. St. Paul explained 
to them St. John's central doctrine, of belief in Him 
who should come after him ; the men believed, and 
were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. And 
for the space of three months the apostles reasoned 
and persuaded in the synagogue as to the things 
concerning the kingdom of God, but when the dis- 
3 



do THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

obedient and hardened in heart spoke evil of the 
Way before the multitude, he withdrew, and the dis- 
ciples with him. And for the space of two years he 
reasoned daily in the school of Tyrannus, so that all 
who dwelt in Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the 
word of the Lord ; and miracles of healing 1 were 
wrought by the hands of Paul, and his fame became 
known to all, both Jews and Greeks, that dwelt in 
Ephesus. 

Ephesus, though a Greek city, w t &s mostly Asiatic 
in character, devoted to the worship of Diana and 
to the practice of magic. The magnificent temple 
of Diana, with its graceful Ionic columns, was 
not only the pride of the city, but one of the 
seven wonders of the world. The image it en- 
shrined, unlike the perfection of form and beauty in 
the idols of Athens, was small and rudely carved. 
It may have been a meteoric stone, and hence the 
ground of the popular belief that it fell down from 
Jupiter. On the rude head, feet, and girdle of the 
goddess mystic characters were engraved ; on these 
characters the priests of Diana prepared many and 
costly books, which were regarded with supersti- 
tious reverence, and were eagerly purchased and 
studied by the devotees of Diana. Among those 
who were converted by the ministry of St. Paul were 
not a few who owned those books, and who practiced 
curious arts. The converts to Christianity brought 
their books together and burned them ; those books 
had cost 50,000 pieces of silver. That must have 
been a heavy blow T to the priests of Diana. But it 
remained for the shrine-makers to excite a tumult ; 
one, Demetrius, fearing the loss of his gains, 
gathered his fellow-craftsmen together and har- 
angued them, until their excitable natures were 
filled with a fury, which spread like w r ildfire. Soon 
the whole city w r as a scene of mad confusion, some 
crying one thing, and some another, for the most 
part knew not wherefore they were come together. 



PAUL IN ATHENS. 39 

The frenzied mob seized Gains and Aristarehus, men 
of Macedonia, Paul's companions in travel, and 
rushed with one accord to the theatre. St. Paul 
was minded to enter and speak to the people, but 
his friends withheld him. Alexander, another com- 
panion of St. Paul's, was brought out of the multi- 
tude ; he motioned with his hand, and would have 
made a defence unto the people, but they perceived 
he was a Jew, and the mob for about two hours cried 
out, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians. " We may 
suppose the mob screamed their throats dry, as the 
town clerk after that outburst, succeeded in quieting" 
the multitude so that he might speak to them in 
terms of moderation and good sense. 



40 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN, 



CHAPEE VI. 

The Akeest and Trial at Cesarea. 

Not only from without did St. Paul have to en- 
dure perils and persecutions ; within the church 
envy and prejudice were at work. His motives were 
impugned, his authority disputed, and his conduct 
misrepresented. Poor human nature, what a sad 
spectacle ! But the brave-hearted apostle, though 
deeply grieved at the wrong that was done him, fal- 
tered not in his work ; he again went the round of 
the churches he had planted, exhorting and strength- 
ening them. On his return from this journey he 
sailed past Ephesus, and came to Miletus, from 
whence he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of 
the church, to whom he briefly and feelingly re- 
counted his manner of life, and his w T ork among 
them ; he gave them his charge, and commended 
them to God, and the word of His grace. It was a 
tender and sad parting, doubly sad, from the im- 
pression on the mind of the apostle that they should 
behold his face no more. 

St. Paul was anxious to be in Jerusalem on the 
day of Pentecost, and he desired to set himself right 
with the mother church at Jerusalem. Though dis- 
suaded by friends and warned by a prophet, he held 
on his way in what he felt was the path of duty. 
And when he would not be persuaded, his friends 
ceased, saying : " The will of the Lord be done. " 

On the day following their arrival at Jerusalem St. 
Paul and his company went in unto James, and all the 
elders were present. After salutations, St. Paul re- 
hearsed, one by one, the things which God had 
wrought by his ministry. Having heard the account 



THE ARREST AXD TRIAL AT CESAREA. 41 

they glorified God, but warned him of the danger in 
which he stood from the many thousands of believers 
who were still zealous of the law, and had been in- 
formed that he taught all Jews who were among- the 
Gentiles to forsake Moses. James and the elders ad- 
vised St. Paul to join four of their men who had 
taken a vow, to purify himself with them, be at 
charges for them, that they might shave their heads, 
so that those many zealot brethren might see that 
he walked orderly, keeping the law. 

St. Paul accepted the advice of the elders ; he 
possessed that catholicity of spirit, which prevented 
a feeling of repugnance to ceremonial observances, 
on which he set no saving value ; for the sake of 
weak brethren he was willing to consort with the 
Nazarites and take part in their ancient ceremonial. 
But it was of no avail ; before the seven days were 
fulfilled Jews from Asia saw him in the temple, and 
stirring up the multitude with the cry, "This is the 
man that teacheth all men against the law and this 
place," they laid hold on him and dragged him out 
of the temple, and would have killed him but for the 
chief captain, who having learned that all Jerusalem 
was in an uproar, forthwith took soldiers and cen- 
turions and ran down upon them, and took St. Paul 
out of their hands, demanding who he was and what 
he had done. Some shouted one thing, and some 
another; not being able to obtain any certain in- 
formation, he commanded that the prisoner be 
brought into the Castle. The multitude following 
after, crying out, " Away with him." 

St. Paul was about to be brought into the Castle 
when he spoke to the chief capcain in Greek, who 
asked in surprise, "Dost thou know Greek? Art 
thou not the Egyptian who stirred up sedition and 
led out four thousand men of the Assassins into the 
wilderness?" The apostle answered, "I am a Jew 
of Tarsus, a citizen of no mean city, and I beseech 



42 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

thee, grant me leave to speak unto the people/ 5 
The chief captain granted his request, and standing* 
on the stair he motioned with his hand ; the multi- 
tude below gave heed and were silent. St. Paul 
courteously requested them as fathers and brethren 
to hearken to the defence he was about to make unto 
them. In the Hebrew tongue he succinctly told of 
his birth and bringing up, then of his opposition 
to and persecution of the Nazarenes, of his commis- 
sion to Damascus, and with strong, graphic touches 
he portrays the scene on the Damascan plain, and 
details his interview with Ananias. Passing over 
the intervening years he speaks of his return to 
Jerusalem, and of his trance in the temple, and of 
the commission of Jesus given in the temple, "De- 
part, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gen- 
tiles." At this point a frantic outburst of mad fury 
from the multitude drowned the voice, not over 
strong, and the chief captain, not understanding 1 the 
Hebrew tongue, and supposing the outburst occa- 
sioned b} r some confession of crime, ordered the 
prisoner to be examined by scourging'. But with 
admirable presence of mind the apostle turns to the 
centurion claiming* his right as a Roman citizen. 
The centurion speaks to the chief captain, "Take 
heed what thou doest, this man is a Roman." The 
chief captain g'oing* to the prisoner, demands " Tell 
me, art thou a Roman?" Being answered "Tea," 
the chief captain adds, "With a great sum I ob- 
tained Roman citizenship." St. Paul replies, "I am 
a Roman born." The scourg'ers straightway de- 
parted, and the chief captain was afraid, because un- 
condemned he had bound a Roman. But being- de- 
sirous to ascertain wherefore the Jews were so in- 
furiated against the prisoner he commanded the 
chief priests and all the council to come together on 
the next day, and he broug-ht Paul before them. 
With steadfast look, addressing the council as breth- 



THE ARREST AND TELIL AT CESAREA. 43 

ren he was beginning a respectful apology, when 
Ananias, the high priest, commanded a bystander 
to smite him on the mouth ; whereupon the apostle 
courageously arraigned him for acting without law 
when sitting to judge under law ; 

It was evident that a just decision need not be ex- 
pected from that tribunal, therefore St. Paul struck 
at once to the heart of the matter, declaring that 
he was called in question, " touching the hope and 
resurrection of the dead," affirming that as a Phari- 
see and the son of a Pharisee, he believed in the 
resurrection of the dead. Upon which arose a great 
clamor; some of the Pharisee scribes strove against 
his accusers, declaring they found no evil in the 
man. The discussion waxed so violent that the chief 
captain fearing his prisoner would be torn in pieces, 
took him b}^ force from among them, and placed 
him in safety in the castle. 

But the suffering saint was cheered in the night 
season ; the same Jesus who was with him in the 
temple was with him in the castle, bidding him be 
of good cheer. 

The discovery of a conspiracy in Jerusalem against 
the life of St. Paul prevented further examination 
in that city, and he was sent under the protection 
of a military guard to Cesarea, to Felix, the gov- 
ernor. 

False accusers, among them Ananias, the high 
priest, and the Jewish orator, Tertullus, followed 
him to Cesarea. When the case was called Tertullus 
stood up as accuser ; after flattering Felix he began 
his accusation by denouncing St. Paul as a pestilent 
fellow, a mover of insurrections, a ringleader of the 
sect of the Nazarenes, and a profaner of the temple. 
After the accuser sat clown the governor motioned 
the accused to rise, whereupon St. Paul arose. After 
a brief and courteous exordium he proceeded to 
show how false were the accusations brought 



44 THE JEW AND THE GEE 31 AN. 

against him, defying' his acccusers to show any 
wrong doing they had found in him, or any other 
ground of accusation, save his belief in the resur- 
rection of the dead, which he had avowed before the 
council. 

He was dismissed for the time ; but after some 
days the governor came with his Jewish wife, and 
St. Paul was again summoned before his judgment 
seat, and he reasoned with such clearness and power 
on righteousness, temperance and judgment to come 
that the bribe-loving Felix trembled before him. 

When Porcius Festus succeeded the dastardly 
Felix, the Jews endeavored to make him a tool by 
which they could wreak their murderous vengeance 
on St. Paul, but their stratagem failed to entrap the 
respecter of Eoman law. When his judgment seat 
was set in Cesarea, accused and accusers were sum- 
moned before him. Again the unprincipled accusers 
laid grievous charges against the apostle, and again 
St. Paul's defence disclosed the baseness of the 
charges. Possibly, to conciliate the factious people, 
over whom he had been made governor, or more 
probably because he considered the whole matter to 
be, as Gallio had thought, mere questions of super- 
stition, therefore a case more appropriate to the Jew- 
ish capital than to the Roman city of Cesarea, Fes- 
tus asked of St. Paul whether he would consent to 
have the trial transferred to Jerusalem. 

However reasonable the governor's proposal may 
have seemed to himself, St. Paul knew that con- 
spiracy and murder would lurk on the way. Stand- 
ing as he was, before Csesar's judgment seat, he ap- 
pealed unto Caesar. The appeal could not be re- 
fused, yet not a charge against the prisoner had been 
substantiated ; the governor had no certain thing to 
write the Emperor. He was sorely perplexed. And 
when a short time after, he received a visit of con- 
gratulation from King AgrixDi)a and Berenice, he 



THE ARREST AXD TRIAL AT CESAREA. 45 

was eager to consult with the king on his perplexing 
situation. King Agrippa desired to hear the man, 
whereupon Festus called together the chief captains 
and principal men of the cit} 7 , and with much pomp 
they entered the hall of audience, whither St. Paul 
had been summoned. The whole company being 
duly seated, the governor turning to King Agrippa 
and his other guests, stated his wish that from the 
examination some certain accusation might be elicited 
worthy of being transmitted to the Emperor, it being 
a most unreasonable thing to send a prisoner to 
Rome not having any charge to prefer against him. 

The apostle having received permission to speak, 
arose, and stretching forth his hand, began his de- 
fence. With appropriate courtesy addressing him- 
self to Agrippa, who had given the permission to 
speak, he then proceeded to set forth the manner of 
his life from his youth up, which having been lived 
in Jerusalem, the Jews knew that he had been a 
Pharisee after the straightest sect. And, he con- 
tinued, their persecutions are on account of ray de- 
claring, through a risen Jesus, the great Pharisee 
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. He then 
went on to recapitulate in clear and incisive terms 
the persecutions, which in all good conscience he 
had perpetrated against the Way he now preached, 
and briefly related the remarkable events preceding 
and completing his conversion to Christ. And of 
his commission from the risen Jesus, as witness and 
minister to the Gentiles, that they might turn from 
darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. 
And for that cause, he emphatically declared, "the 
Jews assayed to kill me, though I testified only what 
the prophets and Moses did say should come, that 
Christ must suffer, should arise from the dead and 
proclaim light, both to the people and to the Gen- 
tiles.' ■ 

At this point in his defence the governor inter- 



46 THE JEW AND TEE GERMAN. 

rupted, exclaiming in a loud voice, " Paul, thy much 
learning doth turn thee to madness !" "Most noble 
Festus," replies St. Paul, "I am not mad, I speak 
only the words of truth and soberness ; the king 
knoweth of these matters, they were not done in a 
corner." Turning to Agrippa St. Paul makes a di- 
rect appeal, "King Agrippa, believest thou the 
prophets?" The eagle eye of Paul had been read- 
ing Agrippa's soul through the varying expressions 
of his countenance, for he immediately adds, "I 
know that thou believest." The answer of Agrippa 
affords proof that St. Paul was not mistaken. To 
that answer St. Paul replies, "Except these bonds I 
would to God that thou and all that hear me this 
day were not only almost but altogether such as I 
am." 

What a sublime and measureless extent of wish, 
reaching up to the highest beatitude of Heaven, and 
limitless as eternity, and in this mortal life confer- 
ring the happiness of an unswerving faith under 
persecution, and which, in presence of death, can 
shout victory over death and the grave. 

The governor and those who sat with him with- 
drew, and after consultation agreed that nothing 
deserving death or bonds was found against the 
prisoner. Agrippa declared that but for the pris- 
oner's appeal to Csesar he might be set at liberty. 
But from that appeal there was no retreat. St. Paul 
was delivered along with other prisoners to the cus- 
tody of a centurion of the Augustan band. 



ST. PAUL IN ROME— CHARACTERISTICS. 47 



CHAPTEE VII. 

St. Paul in Rome — Characteristics. 

The voyage to Koine was long and fraught with 
many dangers ; they were shipwrecked off the coast 
of Melita, but that appalling shipwreck, so graphi- 
cally sketched by St. Luke, was a mercy to the peo- 
ple of the island. 

In Rome the lenient treatment of St. Paul was in 
accordance with what might be expected from Roman 
justice toward a prisoner against whom had been 
preferred no charge of crime or violated law. 

St. Paul remained in Rome two years, living in his 
own hired house, "receiving all who came unto him, 
preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the 
things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, none for- 
bidding him." At this point in the life of St. Paul 
the valuable record of St. Luke closes. 

That he was acquitted may be learned from other 
sources and from his own writings. Five years or 
thereabouts are estimated to have elapsed between 
his acquittal and his final arrest ; during those five 
years he made a journey into Spain, and was absent 
some two years, and from what some of the fathers 
say, he probably went as far as the isles of Britain. 

On his return he resumed his apostolic round of 
work among the churches, reproving, exhorting and 
comforting them ; and adding to their numbers. 

His last letter, while yet a freeman of Rome, was 
written from Corinth shortly before leaving for Nico- 
polis, where he intended to winter. But alas ! be- 
fore the winter was over he was arrested and sent a 
prisoner to Rome. No lenient treatment now, no 
dwelling in his own hired house : the terrible charge 



48 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

of complicity with the incendiaries at Rome is 
brought against him, and also the charge of con- 
tinuously violating the law, which prohibited the 
propagation of a new religion among Romans. 

His trial on the first charge resulted in acquittal, 
no particle of proof could be found against him, but 
he was remanded back to prison to await his trial on 
the second charge. 

Incarceration in a Roman prison was a hard fate, 
but the heart of the apostle exulted in the strength 
of triumphant faith ; from that Roman prison he 
wrote his last letter, full of instruction, to his son 
in the gospel, closing with a burst of triumphant 
and unselfish faith, looking far as the race of man 
shall reach — "to all them that love the appearing 
of the Lord, the righteous judge." Then follow 
brief mention of men and matters, and that sad 
statement, " At my first trial no man stood with me, 
all men forsook me." With him as it had been with 
his Master. 

From St. Paul's statement it is but fair to con- 
clude that the faithful Luke had not then reached 
Rome ; the beloved physician who ministered unto 
him and comforted him in prison would have stood 
with him at his trial. Later, in this last letter, he 
writes, "Only Luke is with me." Touching words, 
and they give to St. Luke, the able writer, the be- 
loved physician, an added claim on Christian grati- 
tude and love. 

The traditional accounts of St. Paul's personal 
appearance are meagre, disparaging, and unreliable ; 
possible a truer picture may be obtained by gather- 
ing materials from his writings, from those of St, 
Luke, and from his tireless activity, and remarka- 
ble power of endurance ; and from these materials 
to let imagination outline a portrait. When enter- 
ing upon his apostolic work she paints a young man 
of medium height, lithe of limb and supple in move- 



ST. PAUL IX ROME— CHARACTERISTICS. 49 

raent, readily springing through a window into a 
basket to be let down by the wall. That agile well- 
knit young man has a finely formed head admirably 
set on his shoulders, and the expression of his fine 
Jewish face bespeaks a man of action, a man of 
earnest convictions, of high moral purpose, unflag- 
ging energy, and superior intellectual power ; deep 
set, dark and penetrating eyes complete the picture 
of the young man Barnabas presented to the church 
at Jerusalem. 

But as the great apostle those graces attendant 
upon health and strength have disappeared ; the 
years freighted with incessant labors, perils and 
persecutions have changed his outward aspect. He 
still stands erect, but the rounded limb, the agile 
movement are not there ; the luminous eyes are 
weak and heavy, but their light is not quenched. 
When his spirit burns with holy zeal in disputation 
or in preaching, those weak, dim eyes brighten and 
glow with moral passion and the poetry of feeling, 
yea, with the fervor of inspired genius, and the fee- 
ble voice grows strong again as he reasons of the 
mystery of the will of God and the riches of His 
grace freely bestowed through the Beloved. 

During those years of infirm health, struggling 
against sickness, perils and persecutions, he con- 
tinues to declare unto Jew and Gentile the unsearcha- 
ble riches of the gospel of Christ. Behold him as he 
rises to speak of "the depth of the knowledge and 
wisdom of God, of His judgments and ways past 
finding out. " He stands weak, pale, emaciated, but 
his great soul gives him dignity of bearing, as with 
his peculiar and impressive motion of the hand he 
bespeaks the attention of his hearers. Those who 
love the glad tidings are attent to catch every pre- 
cious word ; but among those hearers are mockers, 
curious to see and hear the man whose letters they 
have found to be weighty and powerful, but they 



50 THE JEW AND THE GEE3IAK 

are blind to soul-greatness, and seeing the physical 
man almost a wreck they say, " His bodily presence 
is weak and his speech contemptible." 

St. Paul's health must have considerably improved 
and his voice again become sonorous before his cap- 
ture in Jerusalem, or from the top of the castle stair 
the power of his speech could not have hushed and 
held spell-bound the surging multitude below until 
the doctrine of the resurrection roused their senseless 
fury. Such power of voice could not at once have 
been called forth by stress of feeling, nor by the im- 
mediate action of his wonderful nerve-force which 
during the whole course of his apostleship enabled 
him to bear up under stripes and imprisonments ; 
under perils by land and perils by sea, through his 
confidence of faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

And this view of a physically improved condition 
preceding his arrest in Jerusalem is supported by a 
medallion likeness said to have been found in the 
ruins of Herculaneum, and thought to have been 
taken in the early part of his first Eoman ircmrison- 
ment. If the medallion is a genuine find it is a 
precious recovery and a valuable corrective of current 
notions in regard to the personal appearance of St. 
Paul. The picture shows a noble conformation of 
head and face of the handsomer Jewish type ; the 
beard is full and flowing; the whole represents a 
care-worn, thoughtful man of mature years, and it 
pretty fairly satisfies the student of his life and 
writings. On the obverse side of the medallion the 
inscription is Paulus vas electionis. On the reverse 
side, in Latin, are the twenty-sixth and twenty- 
seventh verses of the sixty -eighth psalm, from the 
Septuagint. Verse twenty-sixth, "Praise ye God in 
your assemblies (or in the highest) , even the Lord, 
from the fountains of Israel ," verse twenty-seventh, 
"Here is Benjamine the youngest, their leader." 
The latter verse was evidently added in special com- 



ST. PAUL IN ROME— CHARACTERISTICS. 51 

plimentto the great Benjamite of the picture, whose 
face is that of a leader, thoughtful, determined and 
energetic. 

But it is not necessary to seek the aid of medallion 
likenesses, nor the plastic fashioning' of imagination 
to portray the spiritual man, whose unmistakable 
greatness is seen in the graphic touches of St. Luke, 
and in his own writings, which are the great store 
house of Christian doctrine. They give the 
mental measure of the man who could touch the 
prof oundest chords of human feeling, and who could 
enter into the subtlest workings of the human intel- 
lect, and again, teach with a simplicity that all men 
may comprehend. 

Both the writings and the conduct of St. Paul 
witness to an intense nature, in which cohere the op- 
posite elements of gentleness and sternness, together 
with great strength of will and an unswerving loyalty 
to truth. 

And he also possessed in a high degree a subtle 
power of abstraction ; it is indeed the master-key to 
some of his grandest arguments. His long training* 
in the school of Hillel may have developed the natu- 
ral bent of his mind into a leading mental character- 
istic, to which may be attributed those things hard 
to be understood, which have baffled so many learned 
workers at exegetical crucibles, but which, under the 
warm light of intelligent Christian apprehension, 
cast off the hard crust of subtle abstraction and dis- 
close the wholesome, spiritual fruit within. 

The gentleness of St. Paul's nature is exquisitely 
shown in his letter to Philemon as he pleads in be- 
half of the erring but repentant and converted Ones- 
imus ; and his sternness is seen in his sharp and 
fearless rebuke of a brother apostle for a course of 
conduct which to him seemed a time-serving policy. 
And being himself so strong of purpose he was lack- 



52 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

ing in kindly sympathy to a weaker brother ; he was 
hard on John Mark, and thus brought about a sepa- 
ration from his faithful and long time co-worker, 
Barnabas. But whether gentle or stern he was ever 
loyal to his conception of right. 



THE EPISTLES OE ST PA UL. 53 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Epistles of St. Paul. 

In his epistles St. Paul bequeathed to the church 

an invaluable treasure ; they are a very temple of 

Christian doctrine on whose corner-stone he inscribed 

the immortal words, " As many as are led by the 

spirit of God, these are the sons of God." "The 

spirit bearing witness with our spirit, that we are 

the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs 

of God and joint heirs with Christ." These precious 

words declare to all men of every race aud nation 

that the church of our God and His Christ is the 

church universal, whose portals are open to all men 

who seek after righteousness and holiness after 

"a larger life in service 
To man, for love of God." 

Under the ordering- of the providence of God the 
ages, as they move on from renaissance to renais- 
sance, will bring an ever enlarging sphere of thought 
and of knowledge, and men will attain a clearer ap- 
prehension of the sublime simplicity of the gospel 
of Christ as preached by St. Paul, they will find that 
the w T ritings of St. Paul will not support the subtilely 
wrought, yet cumbrous superstructure of Christian 
philosophy which has been reared upon them. Men 
will learn to distinguish between his setting- forth 
of the truth as it is in Jesus, and his illustrative and 
abstract arguments, arguments often based on his 
intense Hebraism, and on those beliefs and tradi- 
tions of his times, concerning which he charges the 
church of Thessalonica, "Hold fast the traditions 
which ye were taught, whether by word or letter of 
ours." 

Of the letters of St. Paul thirteen have come down 
4 



54 1HE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

to us. These thirteen precious documents are the 
earliest writings of the New Testament. Nine of 
them were written to the churches ; they all touch the 
same key-note, and in some of them it reaches full 
rounded chords ; that key-note is the liberty where- 
with Christ has made us free, free from the Levitical 
or ceremonial law. 

St. Paul's epistles invariably open with words of 
loving greeting, and generally there follows a thanks- 
giving to God on behalf of those to whom he is writ- 
ing and to whom he is about to declare some great 
Christian truths, and the application of these truths 
to daily life. 

The epistles of St. Paul comprise about one> 
fourth of the New Testament ; the oldest, the first 
written, are those to the church in Thessalonica ; 
these letters were written about A. D. 53, while on 
his second missionary journey. Some five years or 
more elapsed before he wrote again to the churches. 
His next letters were written to the Corinthian 
church, and during his third missionary journey 
he wrote the epistle to the Galatians, and the epistle 
to the Romans. 

The hypothesis that St. Paul's thorn in the flesh 
was a sore disease of the eyes finds some support in 
his words to the Galatians. Probably his eyes 
were never strong after that severe stroke of blind- 
ness without the gate of Damascus. He writes to 
the Galatians, "That which was a temptation to you 
in my flesh ye despised not nor rejected, but received 
me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. For 
I bear you witness that if possible ye would have 
plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. " 
Sore eyes, inflamed and festering, are to many peo- 
ple a temptation to turn away from, if not to despise 
and reject the sufferer. 

The epistle to the Galatians, with its clarion cry 
of liberty, through knowledge of the truth, the truth 



TEE EPISTLES OF ST. PA UL. 55 

as it is in Christ, was a special favorite with Luther ; 
he called it " My epistle, ray constant friend and 
companion." 

The epistle to the Romans deals with some of the 
most profound problems that has^e ever been pre- 
sented to the human mind. It has been called " The 
Kernel of the New Testament," and it has given rise 
to more disputation than any other portion of the 
sacred writings. St. Paul has been made responsi- 
ble for much that he evidently never meant. 

His great doctrine of salvation by faith has from 
the early ages of the church, even to these latter 
days, been declared to be in direct opposition to the 
doctrine of St. James ; but to the student of the two 
epistles the opposition or difference is found to be 
only an apparent difference growing out of the dif- 
ferent standpoints of the two apostles, and the con- 
sequent difference of their method of presenting the 
same great truth, for the faith which St. Paul 
preaches is not a passive faith, but an active life- 
principle, bringing forth the fruits of love to God 
and man, as may be seen in his life, which was 
literally crammed full of good works, through which 
his faith shines clear and bright as the morning 
star. His life witnesses that the two apostles are 
essentially at one. 

During St. Paul's first imprisonment at Rome he 
wrote the letters to the Philippians, to Philemon, to 
the Colossians, and the letter to the Ephesians. This 
letter is the last utterance of St. Paul to the Gentile 
church, and is the crowning glory of his writings. 
" A divine letter, glowing with the flame of Christian 
love, and the splendor of holy light, and flowing with 
fountains of living water. " 

In the earlier ages of the church, and in the later 
times the epistle to the Ephesians has been thought 
to be the letter written to the Laodiceans, to which 
the apostle refers in his letter to the Colossians. 



56 THE JEW AND THE GEB3IAX. 

The letter contains strong internal evidence that it 
was not written exclusively to the church in Ephe- 
sus, a church with which St. Paul has been long and 
intimately associated. Most probably this letter 
was, as suggested by Canon Farrar, a "circular 
letter to the churches of Asia." "And this," he 
says, " accounts for the exclusion of all private salu- 
tations, and for the absence of affectionate intimacy 
and personal appeal by which it is marked." Ter- 
tullian and other church fathers to the time of 
Jerome, state that the old copies of this epistle 
had no address; the superscription, "TotheEphe- 
sians," was added on the margin of the later manu- 
scripts. 

Of the three iDastoral epistles, the first letter to 
Timotlw, and the letter to Titus, are believed to 
have been written after St. Paul's liberation from 
his first imprisonment in Rome, and during his last 
missionary journey. In his former missionary jour- 
neys Timothy had generally been with him, but now 
he must be at his post as overseer or bishop of the 
church in Ephesus, and St. Paul writes to instruct, 
to strengthen, and to encourage him, that he may 
be the more fully fitted for the rightful discharge of 
his important duties as a minister of Christ. 

As St. Paul's last visit to Ephesus was drawing to 
a close, in the autumn preceding his final arrest, he 
wrote his masterly letter to Titus, whom he urges to 
join him at Nicopolis, where he had proposed to 
winter. 

The last letter of St. Paul which has come down 
to us, is the second letter to Timothy. This letter 
was written during his final imprisonment at Eome, 
while he was awaiting his last trial with no expecta- 
tion of acquittal. With death staring him in the 
face he still felt an earnest heart-hunger to see and 
to embrace again his beloved son in the gospel. In 
this touching letter he urges Timothy to come to 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL. 57 

him with all possible speed, assigning as the reason 
that the time of his departure was at hand. 

This last letter of the great apostle, The Chosen 
Vessel of Christ, glows with the light of triumphant 
faith, and to this day it touches in the hearts of his 
spiritual children the same thankful yet sorrowing 
chord which it struck in the bosom of Timothy. 

The trial of St. Paul came sooner than he had ex- 
pected ; for the cloke, for the books, for the special 
parchments he had left at Troas he had no further 
need. But the speedier trial and sentence of death 
did not find him unprepared ; he was ready to be 
offered up. His strong faith was exultant in its 
firm grasp of the promise of life which is in Christ 
Jesus, whose apostle he was by the will of God ; and 
that faith enabled him to realize that his death day 
in time would be his coronation day in eternity. 

Sentence of condemnation was pronounced against 
him, but as a Roman citizen he was spared the lin- 
gering torture of death by crucifixion ; under Roman 
law a Roman might not be nailed to a tree. 

The place of execution lay outside the gate of the 
imperial city. To the death place, surrounded by 
a cohort of Roman soldiers, the dauntless apostle is 
led. They lay bare the neck, he kneels, his head 
is placed on the fatal block, the headsman raises his 
sword, it falls, a blinding flash of light from the 
polished steel, and all is over. In the practiced 
hand of the Roman executioner one terrible stroke 
of the sharp sword, and that noble head is severed 
from the emaciated body. A sharp, swift passage 
from the church militant to the church triumphant. 
A blessed exchange from the company of Roman 
jailers and Roman soldiers to " the glorious company 
of the apostles, to the noble army of martyrs, to the 
presence of Him who didst open the kingdom of 
heaven to all believers. " 



PART II. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

The Primitive Church. 

No marble column nor massive arch nor tower of 
stone was erected to commemorate the invaluable 
labors of St. Paul. But the church in Europe, 
founded and builded up in the Christian faith by 
him and his little company of co-laborers, is his 
enduring, his living monument. The influence of 
the church he planted shaped the destiny of Europe. 
The church brought western Europe to the fore- 
front of the nations of the world. 

After the death of St. Paul the church in Europe, 
for many years, continued to be an indefatigable 
body of Christian workers. And indeed during the 
age of the apostolic fathers the church in general 
was one great household in the faith. All Christians, 
without regard to racial or social distinctions, were 
bound by the bonds of Christian faith and love into 
one great brotherhood. But succeeding ages brought 
into the church controversies, contentions, and bit- 
ter strifes ; and later, when the shield of temporal 
power protected the church against persecution, she 
was yet more deeply wounded in her spiritual life 
by worldly vanity and pride, by lust of power and 
greed of wealth and rank. And, moreover, Christi- 
anity was sorely wounded in the house of her friends 
by narrow and cruel misconceptions of duty, and by 
the arrogance of ignorance. 

The amount of error, of crime, which in the course 
of ages crept stealthily into the church, was sufficient 



THE PRIMITIVE CHUBCH. 59 

to have utterly destroyed her, but for her divine vi- 
tality, which was ever, in her most degenerate days, 
attested through faithful witnesses who stood up for 
the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. But for those loyal 
and devoted men, women and children the church 
must have perished, even as dynasties and empires 
have perished through their degeneracy. 

In the days of her primitive purity, when the 
whole church was one great commune, that branch 
of the church in Rome was specially zealous of good 
works. In Rome the gospel of Christ won its way 
into all classes of society. The captives and host- 
ages held in the imperial city were not overlooked, 
and many of them gladly accepted the gospel of 
consolation from the lips of the loving-hearted mes- 
sengers of Christ. And when those Christian host- 
ages were redeemed and the Christian captives ex- 
changed or set free, they became to their people 
preachers and teachers of that gospel which in the 
days of their distress had brought to them comfort 
and consolation. 

The Roman church, so zealous in good works, grew 
and multiplied, and became the leading one of the 
households of the faith in Europe. Her converts 
were drawn from all ranks of society, from among the 
nobles, the philosophers, the army, the merchants, 
and the slaves. All of these were influenced more 
or less largely by the exemplary lives of the Christ- 
ians as seen in their daily conduct ; under all cir- 
cumstances, in peace and under persecution, those 
striking traits which never fail to touch appreciative 
hearts were found among Christians. They abounded 
in brotherly love and in kindness to everyone, even 
to enemies, and in temperance, patience, and eveiy 
good work. 

The converts, both of the clergy and laity, labored 
with fervent zeal for the extension of the good cause. 
And such great success crowned their labors that in 



60 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

the second century Irenseus writes, " The gospel was 
carried into Lybia and Egypt, to the Celts, Iberians 
and Germans." He further states "That the gospel 
was carried to the ends of the earth, and that the 
people were glad to accept it, for it met and satis- 
fied all the religious cravings of the human soul." 

Such marvelous success was not owing to outward 
advantages, for Christianity as a religio-nova^-a new 
religion, — was under the proscription of the Roman 
law. The death penalty was paid by St. Paul as 
propagator of a new religion among Romans. 

During his life there were many Christians in 
Caesar's household, and from that time on, Chris- 
tians continued to hold important positions at the 
imperial court and in the army, although hostile 
laws were enacted against them, and at times they 
fell victims to these laws, they were cast out of their 
positions and suffered cruel persecutions. 

The persecutions of Christians under Nero were 
long and cruel, and only partially ceased with his 
death. In those early ages of our era, Christians 
could have no feeling of safety, tumults and perse- 
cutions were so frequently aroused against them. 
But when they were favored with seasons of respite 
they labored earnestly in season and out of season to 
mate known the way of life, and their labors, as at 
first, were crowned with success. After the acces- 
sion of Domitian to the imperial throne a fierce per- 
secution broke out against them, though it was not 
of long continuance. The Emperors of the second 
century were less cruel, and the Christian church 
through thousands of channels spread over many 
countries, and Christianity began to permeate the 
whole fabric of social and political life. 

The church had, as one great brotherhood, ignored 
all political, social and ethnic barriers. The only dis- 
tinctions recognized were those of Christian and non- 
Christian. And each local church or congregation 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 61 

was independent of every other, governed only by its 
bishop or elder, and possessing its own common 
treasury. But during the second century a more 
complex organization began to develop ; churches in 
the same province met in deliberative assemblies. 
These assemblies led to an increase of the power of 
the bishops, and finally to the elevation of the bishop 
of the chief city of a province to the rank of superior 
or presiding bishop. This was the first step toward 
the overthrow of primitive congregational church 
government. By Greek writers these deliberative 
assemblies are called Synods, by Latin writers 
Councils. 

In the third century the bishops of Antioch and 
of Alexandria claimed precedence over all other 
eastern bishops, and the bishop of Rome claimed 
supremacy over all western bishops. 

The provincial assemblies or councils soon de- 
veloped into general councils ; eventually the whole 
form of church government was changed, and the 
simplicity of Christian fellowship was destroyed. 
Bat notwithstanding the evil of her secularized gov- 
ernment the church continued to grow ; she extended 
her boundaries both in the east and in the west. In 
her communion she had hosts of spiritually minded 
men and women, whose earnest zeal and holy lives 
were a force not to be withstood, and on the other 
hand the awe of the invisible world, and of its re- 
wards and punishments, as taught by Christians, 
drew multitudes into the Christian fold. But a 
fearful trial of their faith was in store for them. The 
terrible persecution under Diocletian, early in the 
fourth century, reduced the church almost to dire 
extremity. Their scriptures were burned, and their 
church edifices were demolished. 

This direful persecution was declared by some of 
the church fathers to be a judgment sent from God 
upon the church as a chastisement on account of 



62 THE JEW AND THE GEB3IAN. 

their angry contentions concerning* doctrines, and 
their worldly wranglings about precedence and rank. 
Such contentions had torn the church into bitter fac- 
tions ; it stands recorded that " the abusive epithets 
were as darts and spears which Christians hurled 
against Christians. " But these bitter revilings were 
silenced for a time by the Diocletian persecution. 
It was a time that tried men's souls. Under cruel 
torture some of the Christians abjured their faith 
and saved their lives, but a far larger number were 
brave and true of heart ; holding fast to their faith 
they passed through the gate of martyrdom to the 
life everlasting. 

The church came out of that persecution weak and 
crippled, but Christians were drawn closer together; 
the} T strengthened and comforted each other in that 
dark hour of need when the catacombs and other se- 
cret places had to be sought for worship. But this 
darkest hour, when it meant death to be known as a 
Christian, was followed by the break of the day of 
deliverance. 

The young Emperor of the West, Constantine, 
son of parents friendly to Christianity, was march- 
ing against Maxentius, who had entrenched himself 
in Rome. 

As the army of Constantine neared the city he 
commanded a halt, that his men might have a brief 
rest. During that hour of rest Constantine beheld 
in the heavens a wonderful sign, the sign of the 
cross, and above it he saw the appearance of cer- 
tain characters, in which he read, "In this shalt 
thou conquer." To him it was a token sent from 
God, and as such he pointed it out to his army. The 
men beheld the sign, and were filled with faith 
in the promised victory. Constantine and his army 
resumed their march, full of wondering faith in the 
sign they had seen, and went into action in the full 
flush of belief that victory would perch on their ban- 
ners. 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 63 

The battle was fought and the expected victory 
was gained ; a victory which made Constantine su- 
preme sovereign of the western empire. As an ex- 
pression of his gratitude to God he issued an edict 
proclaiming unrestrained liberty of worship to all 
Christians. He rebuilt the churches which had been 
razed to their foundations, and at his own expense 
he had many new and elegant churches erected. 
And without delay he enacted a law that all Chris- 
tians held in slavery should forthwith be released. 

And throughout his empire the infliction of death 
by crucifixion was peremptorily forbidden. The 
cross was never again to be used as an instrument of 
death ; it was henceforth to be borne before his 
legions as a symbol of triumph. 

His victory over Licinius, Emperor of the Roman 
empire in the East, A. D. 324, made him sole Em- 
peror over all the great Roman empire, and there- 
after he is known to history as Constantine the 
Great. And Christianity under the shadow of the 
imperial regis could both work and rest in peace ; 
no more dread forebodings, no more enduring of de- 
stroying persecutions. And the no longer despised 
Christians grew rapidly into a numerous and im- 
portant body in the political world. 

But alas ! the spiritual condition of the church is 
sad to behold ; she was torn by the bitterness of 
controversies and denunciations, which again as 
darts and spears sorel} T wounded the peace of the 
church. Constantine was deeply grieved at such a 
condition of the church, and he thought it to be his 
duty as temporal head of the church to take meas- 
ures which he deemed sufficient to cast out of the 
church the apples of discord. Acting upon this con- 
ception of his duty he sent letters of invitation to 
the bishops of every province of the Roman empire, 
to meet in council in the city of Nicae, in Asia Minor. 

Nicae was an important and accessible city, alike 



64 THE JEW AND THE GER31AN. 

convenient to the bishops of the east and of the 
west. In May, A. D. 325, three hundred and eigh- 
teen bishops assembled in Niese, and priests, dea- 
cons and laymen increased the numbers of the coun- 
cil to two thousand. After the bishops, the two 
most prominent persons connected with the council 
were Athanasius, a young deacon of Alexandria, and 
the presbyter Arius the Libyan. Foremost among* 
the vexed questions which the council was to con- 
sider and decide were the doctrines set forth by 
Arius, and known as Arianism. The matter was 
discussed to some extent before the formal opening 
of the Council by the Emperor, who did not arrive 
until the 14th of June. 

When it was anaounced to the Council that the 
Emperor had arrived, all business was laid over, the 
bishops took their seats and in silence awaited his 
appearance in the Council. This was announced by 
Christian heralds, whereupon all present arose to 
receive his Imperial Majesty. 

The great church historian, Eusebius, bishop of 
Cesarea, who was an eye witness, says : " The Em- 
peror appeared as a messenger from God. He is a 
tall man of magnificent figure, bat full of grace and 
humility ; he walked up to the golden seat which 
had been prei3arecl for him with eyes reverently 
downcast. Having seated himself, the bishop on 
his right — most probably the historian himself — ad- 
dressed him in a brief oration." In which oration 
the bishop thanked God for having given to the 
church and to the world such an Emperor. And 
again there was silence, — the Emperor then arose 
and formally opened the Council with an appropriate 
speech. In closing he said, "When I learned of the 
divisions and contentions which tore the church I 
felt convinced that I oug-ht not to delay in giving at- 
tention to a matter of so great importance, and it is 
from the desire of being useful to the church that I 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 65 

have convened this great Council. But I shall not 
believe that my end is attained until 1 see that peace 
and that union reign among you, which you are com- 
missioned as the appointed of the Lord to preach to 
others. Do not hesitate, my friends, ye servants of 
God, to banish from among you all causes of dissen- 
sion, by solving controversial difficulties, according 
to the law of peace, and so accomplish a work w r ell 
pleasing to God ; a work that will be a great joy to 
me, your fellow servant in the Lord." The Em- 
peror then gave place to the presidents of the Coun- 
cil. 

From the time of the imperial opening to the 
formulating of the Nicene creed we have- but few 
sources of information as to the manner of delibera- 
tion, but from what we have it is clearly evident 
that the spirit of peace did not rest upon the Coun- 
cil. Eusebius says, " Grievances were numerous on 
both sides, orthodox and Arian. There were from 
the beginning many controversies, accusations and 
replies." From other sources we learn that for sev- 
eral da} T s memorials were sent to the Emperor, 
bishops accusing brother bishops, and laymen crim- 
inating bishops. A day was set apart in order to 
decide these grievances. When the Emperor en- 
tered the Council on that day he held in his hand a 
package sealed with his signet. "These," said he, 
"are the complaints of brethren which have been 
sent to me. I have not read one of them." And 
thereupon he threw the package in the fire. 

The Council continued in session until the latter 
part of August. It condemned Arianism, anathe- 
matized Arius and his friends, and passed sentence 
of banishment against them. It settled the time 
of keeping Easter, though the disagreement as to 
the period of Easter did not at once disappear after 
the decision of the Nicene Council. Other doctrinal 
questions and church schisms were deliberated and 



66 THE JEW AND THE GEEMAN. 

decided upon, and twenty canons were drawn up 
and approved. 

But the great work of the Council was the formu- 
lating of the Nicene creed as the general expression 
of the faith of the church. The Emperor gave his 
full approval to the creed. It was signed by all the 
bishops, except five, and in order to compel unity of 
action in the Council the Emperor threatened to 
banish any bishop who did not sign the creed. Three 
of the bishops who had refused reconsidered the mat- 
ter and signed ; the remaining two bishops, Secun- 
dns and Theonas, pleaded conscientious scruples 
and refused to sign, even in the face of banishment. 
The Emperor forthwith executed his threat, and 
passed sentence of banishment against them, and 
against all priests who sided with them. 

But none of these measures brought peace to the 
church. Her divisions could not be healed by creeds 
nor canons ; neither by decrees nor sentences of 
banishment. The true peace of the church can only 
be attained through Faith, Hope and Love, through 
the Christ likeness. 



THE BISHOP OF ROUE. 67 



CHAPTER X. 

The Bishop of Rome. 

From the famous Council of Nicae may be dated 
the desire in the western or European church for a 
definite constitution to be held and obeyed as a bind- 
ing and sacred obligation, and for a sole head of the 
church as an external representative of the unity re- 
sulting from that sacred obligation. From this de- 
sire on the religious or churchly side originated the 
papacy or universal fatherhood of the bishop of 
Rome. On the temporal side papal pre-eminence 
grew out of the unsound condition of the times. 

After Constantine removed the seat of government 
from Rome to Byzantium, which he renamed Con- 
stantinople, the bishop of Rome was the most im- 
portant person remaining in the ancient city, and to 
him the people looked as chief ruler. The position 
was a responsible and difficult one, for the people of 
Rome had through long-continued luxury and sen- 
suality become enervated and debauched. 

There was no longer a sturdy middle class, the 
sure reliance of the state, as there had been under 
the Republic and under the early empire. The mili- 
tary, the nobles, and the servile plebeians made up 
the population, which was turbulent and lawless, in- 
capable of defending themselves against the bar- 
barians who over-ran the country and threatened 
even " the ancient citadel. " 

The sack of Rome, under Alaric the Goth, A. D. 
415, struck terror into the people, who had been 
supinely relying on their ancient prestige. 

At Hippo, St. Augustine bewailed the sack of 
Rome by barbarians as the end of all human power 
and glory. He thought the fall of Rome presaged 



68 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

the end of the world. But so far from the fears of 
St. Augustine being realized, the sack of the city 
did not put an end to even the nominal empire. 
That shade of an empire continued to abide at Rome, 
though Attila and his Huns devastated Italy almost 
to the gates of the imperial city, and continued to 
live, though Genseric the Vandal took the city, and 
for fourteen days continued the horrors of the sack ; 
but that shade of empire vanished at the coming of 
Theodoric the Goth. Theodoric, son of a Gothic 
king, was, while a youth, held as a hostage at Con- 
stantinople and won such favor with the Emperor 
that he caused him to be trained as his son at arms, 
but royal favor could not bribe Theodoric' s stout 
Gothic heart. The military training of the Greeks 
was drilled into him, but the intellectual training 
was either withheld or Theodoric despised it and 
would not learn. 

On the return of Theodoric to his people he took 
command of the Gothic army and trained his men 
according to the discipline he had learned at Con- 
stantinople ; at the same time he strove to hold them 
to a higher sense of justice and of uprightness than 
he had found in the imperial army. Rome, all Italy 
fell before the stout arms of the brave Goths, and 
Theodoric became king of Italy. 

In his history of Florence, speaking of that period, 
Machiavelli says, " Theodoric possessed great talents, 
both for war and peace ; in war he was always con- 
queror, and in peace he conferred great benefits upon 
the people under him. He enlarged Ravenna and 
restored Rome, and wholly by the force of his char- 
acter he kept within their proper bounds all the bar- 
barian kings who occupied the empire." By force 
of character, wisdom and virtue Theodoric held not 
only Rome and Italy, but every part of the western 
empire in lawful obedience, and the country, freed 
from the continual invasions of the barbarians, ac- 



THE BISHOP OF ROME. 69 

quired new vigor and began to live in an orderly 
and civilized manner ; and from the mixed popula- 
tion arose new languages, as ma}' be seen in the 
similar yet differing languages of Italy, of France, 
and of Spain ; " these dialects or languages partak- 
ing 1 of the native idioms of the new people and of the 
old Roman formed a new manner of discourse. " 

As the first to put a stop to many evils Theodoric 
deserves the highest praise, as during the thirty - 
eight years he reigned in Italy "he brought," says 
Machiavelli, "the country to such a state of great- 
ness that her previous sufferings were no longer rec- 
ognizable. " 

Theodoric established the seat of his empire at 
Ravenna, but he allowed the church of Rome to take 
precedence of the church of Ravenna, and hence the 
popes acquired greater importance in the affairs of 
Italy, "but not until 'the coming of the Lombards 
did the popes have any other authority than what 
grew out of reverence for their habits and doctrine/' 
Machiavelli further states that "under the ponti- 
ficate of Pascal I., the priests of the church of 
Rome from being near the pope and attending" the 
elections of the pontiffs began to dignify their power 
with a title by calling themselves Cardinals, and ar- 
rogating to themselves great authority 7 . " 

After the death of Theodoric the Great, the east 
Gothic war nearly destroyed the prosperity of Theo- 
doric' s long reign of thirty -eight years. Rome was 
again reduced to such a degenerate state that it bor- 
dered on anarchy ; all authority except the papal 
authority was entirely disregarded. 

The pope and the clergy were the only organic 
remnants of the Roman empire, and in addition to 
this prestige was the popular belief that the pope 
possessed a reserve of spiritual power. The awe of 
the supernatural was a potent influence among all 
classes of society from princes to peasants. 



70 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

On the death of Pope Pelagius II. , A. D. 590, the 
better class of people saw clearly the necessity of 
having a brave, firm man as their chief ruler, and 
on several occasions the archdeacon of Eome had 
shown himself to be just such a brave, firm man as 
was needed in the unsettled state of affairs both in 
church and state. 

Without any effort on his part the archdeacon was 
elected to the papacy, and was consecrated as Greg- 
ory the First, and is known to history as Gregory 
the Great. His government fulfilled the expecta- 
tions of the people and of the church. He restored 
order in the city, and through wise and conciliatory 
measures averted the dreaded scourge of invasions. 

He would not sanction the attempt to spread 
Christianity through force of arms ; he taught that 
the gospel of peace must be enforced through peace- 
ful measures ; and he labored to banish the abuses 
which were constantly creeping into the church. 

That he did not claim to be the supreme head of 
the church militant is evident from his rebuke to the 
bishop of Constantinople for arrogating to himself 
such a claim. Pope Gregory First is reported to 
have declared that a bishop made himself anti-Christ 
by claiming to be universal Bishop. But the suc- 
cessors of Gregory the Great were not like minded. 
They departed further and further from the course 
he pursued. They strove for princely power and 
splendor; they multiplied rights and ceremonies 
until the simplicity of worship was well-nigh lost. 

Externally the church was great and powerful, but 
because of spiritual barrenness she was powerless 
to turn her people from sensuous pleasures. The 
literature of the age was as degenerate as the church 
and the community, and for this the church was 
chiefly culpable, not only on accou»nt of her degener- 
ate condition but* also through her unwise prohibi- 
tion of liberal learning. Even Gregory the Great 



THE BISHOP OF ROME. 71 

contemned all secular learning and all music save 
church music. For a priest to sing, except in church 
service, he regarded as levity and sin. It would 
have been his good pleasure to see all books of 
Greek and Latin learning committed to the flames. 



72 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

The Early Monks. 

Fortunately, even in the age of the good pope, 
and all through the succeeding ages, there were 
some broader minded men, especially among the 
monks, who had a deeper insight into the needs of 
human nature, and a truer conception of Christianity. 

To the indefatigable labors of the early monks 
Europe is largely indebted for her salvation from 
barbarism. Monks, through their self-sacrificing 
missionary enterprises, opened the way for the sub- 
sequent civilization of western Europe. They cleared 
the wild lands which had been given to them, they 
cultivated them and made them fruitful. They 
built monasteries, and by frugality and prudent 
management they acquired sufficient wealth to build 
hospitals in which the sick and indigent were cared 
for, and they founded schools. Among the people 
schools had mostly been allowed to die out, and the 
books of ancient learning would have been lost but 
for their preservation in the monasteries. 

Learning was kept alive in Italy only in the mon- 
astic and cathedral schools. The attendance at the 
schools in those early ages was generally small ; 
there were but few other students than those in- 
tended for the church as the whole course of instruc- 
tion was in Latin, and Latin was no longer the speech 
of the people. The young Italian language was 
everywhere spoken, but many generations passed 
before it found expression in writing. Like all 
growths of enduring fibre its development was slow, 
so late as the eleventh century ; but few laymen, no 
matter how high their rank, were able to sign their 



THE EA EL Y MONKS. 7 3 

names. Instruments of writing' were signed with 
the mark of the cross. 

But the sixth century had not closed before the 
leaven of deterioration began to work in the monas- 
teries. Their constantly increasing wealth engen- 
dered idleness, and idleness is ever the fruitful 
mother of useless luxury and of vice. The monaster- 
ies continued to degenerate until their industry and 
frugality, their simplicity and purity were well-nigh 
lost. But as of old there were a faithful few who 
did not bow the knee to Baal. 

Benedict of Nursia founded a new order of monks 
upon a higher moral basis, though his rule of life was 
less austere than that of existing orders. St. Bene- 
dict was educated in Borne, but in his early man- 
hood he became disgusted with the dissipations of 
the schools and of the city, and to escape the gen- 
eral contamination he withdrew for a time not only 
from Borne but from the world to the solitude of 
hermit life. Subsequently he began his great work 
of monastic reformation. It is recorded of St. Bene- 
dict that late in his life he converted a body of 
pagan mountaineers and turned their temple into a 
monastery, and spent in that monastery the re- 
mainder of his days. 

The impetus given by the work of St. Benedict re- 
aroused a wide-spread missionary spirit. Through 
the earnest labors of Augustine and his monks all 
Saxon Britain had professed Christianity before the 
close of the seventh century. Anterior to the Saxon 
conquest the Celtic church of Britain was an import- 
ant church ; so early as the fifth century she had 
sent missionaries into Gaul and Belgium. But the 
Saxon conquerors were heathen, and had broken up 
and partially detroyed the native church, but still to 
some extent, the Celtic church held its own. And 
after the establishment of the Boman church in the 
British isles the Celtic church still made its influence 



74 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

felt as a distinct church, until the conference of 
Whitby, when the two churches agreed to set aside 
minor differences and become one, and as one church 
labor for the Saxon tribes of Britain and for the 
whole population of the British isles, and also for 
the peoples of the continent. A British Benedictine 
monk, Winifred, went over to the continent and 
among the Frieslanders, Hessians and other Ger- 
manic tribes labored so long and successfully that 
he is known to history as St. Boniface, the Apostle 
of Germany. 

The Venerable Bede was a native Englishman, 
born in the county of Durham. He was the most 
eminent scholar and writer of his age ; he is called 
the father of English history. Bede was born about 
A. D. 673, and when about seven years old he was 
given by his parents in charge to the Abbot of the 
Wearmouth and Jarrow monastery, to be, like 
Samuel, brought up in the house of the Lord. Re- 
ferring to the days of his youth the Venerable Bede 
writes, " I always took delight in learning, in teach- 
ing, and in writing. In the nineteenth year of my 
age I received deacon's orders, in the thirtieth I 
was ordained priest." His fame as a scholar and 
a teacher was known throughout all western Europe, 
and attracted hundreds of students to the monastic 
school of Jarrow. 

His industry was untiring. He was the officiating 
priest, the preacher, the teacher, the careful student, 
and writer. He wrote on many subjects and wrote 
both in prose and poetry. His best known, and per- 
haps his greatest work, is his Ecclesiastical History ; 
he brought it down to 731, four years before his 
death. Bede wrote in Latin. King Alfred trans- 
lated Bede's history into Anglo-Saxon. 

A letter has been preserved, written by his pupil, 
Cuthbert, which gives a touching picture of his 
death. Cuthbert says, "Though suffering much, 



THE EARLY MONKS. 75 

and drawing his breath with pain, he conversed with 
his pupils, and at times sang* psalms, and w r as full of 
thanksgiving and rejoicing." To his last hour he 
was translating, by dictation, into Anglo-Saxon the 
gospel according to St. John. To his pupil scribe 
he said, " Write fast, I shall not be with you much 
longer." The last word was translated and written 
down only some half hour before his saintly spirit 
left its well-worn tenement of clay. 

The learning and the writings of the Venerable 
Bede scarcely justify the assertion of Dr. Hallam, 
that the seventh century was the nadir of the human 
mind. Though Bede lived into the eighth century, 
thirty-five years, and his greatest work was done in 
the eighth century, yet the workman was made ready 
for his work in the seventh century. But in general 
application Dr. Hallam is certainly right as when 
he says, " The advance movement of the human mind 
began with Charlemagne in the next century." 

The civil and religious development of western Eu- 
rope were not separate movements, developing on 
parallel lines. They were the two phases of the 
united action of mental and spiritual forces, quick- 
ened by the influence of Christianity. The influence 
of Christianity may be as clearly seen in the im~ 
proved conditions of life, as in the growth of the 
church. 

It was the harmonizing and civilizing influence of 
the Christian religion, which slowly and often under 
the burden of monstrous error brought western 
Europe from the darkness of the fifth century to the 
light and liberty of the sixteenth. And to appre- 
ciate fairly the breadth and the depth of the in- 
fluence of Christianity it is necessary to consider 
together the civil and religious growth of the 
country. 

The introduction of Christianity among the Ger- 
manic peoples w r as the sowing of the seed which pro- 



76 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

duced the fruit that ripened into such men as Karl 
the Great (Charlemagne) and Alfred the Great, epoch 
making men. These two men stand at the head 
of the great army of human progression, which made 
western Europe the centre of the highest civilization 
of the world. Charlemagne, the leader of the ad- 
vance guard, was the greatest man of his age ; he 
was great as chieftain and warrior, great as states- 
man and scholar, and as monarch he was wise. He 
was a liberal patron of learning, and he gathered 
about him the best scholars of the time. He en- 
couraged all branches of industry ; he gave new 
life to commerce by the great roads he constructed ; 
by means of a great road he opened up the country 
from the Elbe to the Danube, and after a time he 
continued the same road on to the Black sea. And 
a still greater undertaking was the road from the 
Mediterranean to the North sea. 

He gave special attention to the education of his 
people ; for his own children and those of the nobles 
he established the Palatine school, in which the 
pupils were to be instructed by the best masters in 
what were then known as the seven liberal arts, or 
branches of learning : and he inaugurated a system 
of free schools for the general good of his people. 

The borders of his empire were often harassed by 
the Saxons, a fierce, brave people, who had defied 
the Roman eagles. Charlemagne determined to sub- 
due and to convert them ; he found it a difficult task, 
and when, after twelve years, he succeeded in sub- 
duing them and inducing them to accept Chris- 
tianity, it was accomplished more through his liber- 
ality than by the force of his arms. To make sure 
of them he established schools in various parts of 
their country and built a number of monasteries. 

In his own age, and in many succeeding ages, the 
chief fame of Charlemagne was that of the conquer- 
ing hero, the resistless monarch ; but in these later 



THE EARL Y MONKS. 77 

years his greatness is seen from a more humane 
point of view, as the promoter of civilization and the 
friend of education. He is said to have written the 
first German grammar. 

The eighth century was. one of great aggrandize- 
ment to the church. Charlemagne, as Emperor of the 
west, possessed in Rome supreme imperial power, 
but to the pope he grauted authority over the city 
of Rome and the adjacent territory, which was after- 
ward known as the states of the church, and over 
these the pope ruled with sovereign power. Many 
nobles gave their castles to the church, and princes 
gave royal domains ; and some of the kings trans- 
ferred cities and whole provinces to monasteries and 
to bishops. Bishops became sovereign lords, they 
administered civil law, and marched to war at the 
head of their armies. And the pope made a long 
stride toward temporal power. 

Louis the Meek, the son and successor of Charle- 
magne, was equally zealous for the propagation of 
Christian^ among the heathen. During his reign 
the Danes, Swedes and other northern tribes were 
partially converted to the Christian religion. At 
the same time by zealous and devout monks Chris- 
tianity was preached to the Slavonian tribes. 
Charles the Bold, like his illustrious grandfather, 
was the patron of learning ; he enlarged and im- 
proved the Palatine school, and he greatly increased 
the number and improved the condition of the free 
schools of his empire. 



78 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN 



CHAPTER XII. 

The British Isles. 

In the ninth century the greatest men are from 
the isles of Britain. John Erigena Scotus, a native 
of Ireland, stands pre-eminent as a scholar and as a 
Christian philosopher. The sum and substance of 
his great exposition of Christian philosophy consists 
in his conclusive argument that the chief aim of the 
whole Christian system is to bring the minds and 
hearts of men into harmony with the divine will 
through holiness of life, and holiness is only to be 
attained by continuous and close communion with 
God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

In the ninth century Alfred of England, stands 
unequaled as warrior and statesman, as scholarly 
and Christian king. Alfred was the rescuer of 
his country, the victorious champion of Christianity 
against the pagans, as Saxon chroniclers term the 
Danes. 

The pagan Danes possessed superior prowess in 
war ; they had nearly harassed the warlike spirit 
out of the Anglo-Saxons, and then they taunted 
them with having become a race of women under the 
influence of their new religion. 

Continuous defeats had so disheartened the people 
that it was almost impossible to raise an army and 
bring it into action at the time when the crown was 
placed on young Alfred's head. The young king 
was brave, and full of enthusiasm for his country and 
for his religion, but he found it a most difficult task 
to enkindle enthusiasm in the hearts of his discour- 
aged and almost starving people. The supineness 
of his people and the loss of his stronghold Chip- 
penham, reduced the young king to sad straits, as 



THE BRITISH ISLES. 79 

related by his friend and biographer, Asser, bishop 
of Sherborn. But after many efforts he succeeded in 
arousing their dormant courage and patriotism so 
far that he was enabled to raise an army and march 
at their head to battle. The army of the enemy far 
outnumbered them, but Alfred gained a decisive 
victory. This victory put heart into the Saxons. 
Numbers readily enlisted under the royal banner and 
gladly followed their brave young king, who led 
them on from victory to victory, driving the in- 
vaders before him as far as his northeastern border ; 
there he suffered them to remain under their own 
laws, but subject to him as their king. Alfred's 
clemency was also sagacious statesmanship ; the 
Danes, as his subjects, settled on his northeastern 
border were a bulwark against further Danish in- 
vasion. 

King Alfred restored the dismantled fortresses and 
built new ones, especially along the coast. 

To prevent the army and people from being again 
reduced to a state of destitution and partial starva- 
tion Alfred would only permit one-half of the able 
bodied men of his kingdom to enter the army ; the 
other half were to engage in industrial pursuits, of 
which the chief was farming. 

The Danes had partially destroyed many cities, 
and had demolished the monasteries and their libra- 
ries. Alfred restored the cities, rebuilt the monas- 
teries, and refilled their libraries. He also invited 
to England skilled workmen in the various mechani- 
cal arts from all the countries of Europe. King 
Alfred laid the foundation of English commerce, and 
of English liberty. Before his time public justice 
could only be sought in the local courts of earls and 
bishops. Alfred appointed special judges, who 
were sworn to decide fairly and uprightly, and he 
ordered that the accused be tried by twelve of his 
compeers. 



80 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

To Alfred the Great, England and America owe 
the right of trial by jury. And he is the first of the 
rulers of the world who made the sacredness of 
human life the basis of advancing civilization. He 
repealed the ancient law of composition for blood 
by payment of money to the survivors, and he 
placed all possible safeguards around human life 
and liberty. 

His biblical preface to the Code of Law concludes 
with the law of Christ, "Whatsoever } r e would that 
men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." 
His Code of Law began with the Ten Command- 
ments, which were followed by extracts from the 
Mosaic law, bearing on murder and other crimes, 
and on the relations between masters and servants. 
And King Alfred opened commercial relations with 
the east by sending an embassy to the traditional 
church of St. Thomas in India. 

Alfred the Great was not only a patriot, statesman 
and wise king, he was also a scholar and an inven- 
tor ; he found it necessary, in order to prevent waste 
of his precious time, to devise some means by which 
he could methodically apportion his evening hours 
to his varied work. This led to his invention of the 
famous candle clock, but their houses were so rudely 
built that the candle clock was liable to be blown 
out by any passing blast of wind. In this exigency 
the king set himself to the task of overcoming so 
serious a difficulty, and he succeeded ; the further 
invention of the transparent horn lantern made his 
candle clock secure in house or tent. 

That Alfred founded a school in the royal city of 
Oxford has been satisfactorily proven ; that he laid 
the foundations of University college has been rati- 
fied by the Court of King's Bench, though there are 
historical critics who protest against such founda- 
tion. 

It is claimed bv some writers that Alfred the 



THE BRITISH ISLES. SI 

Great translated the whole Bible into Anglo-Saxon, 
but no positive proof can be adduced that he trans- 
lated any other portion than the book of Psalms. 
For the use of the clergy of his kingdom and for the 
ofeneral good of his people he translated "The 
Pastoral Care" of Gregory the Great, and to this 
excellent book he added other works translated 
from early Christian authors ; but he did not confine 
himself to religious works, he translated the general 
history of Orosius, and a geographical description 
of Germany, and he wrote down a book of explora- 
tions on the coasts of the Baltic, and of the North 
seas. 

"Othere, the old sea captain, 
Who dwelt in Helgoland, 
To King Alfred, the Lover of truth. 
Brought a snow-white walrus tooth, 
Which he held in his brown right hand. 

And Alfred, king of the Saxons, 

Had a book upon his knees, 
And wrote down the wondrous tale 
Of him who was first to sail 

Into the Arctic seas. 

And to the king of the Saxons, 

In witness of the truth, 
Raising his noble head, 
He stretched his brown hand, and said, 

Behold this walrus tooth." 

The foundations laid by Alfred the Great have 
proven to be enduring foundations. He laid not only 
the foundation of University college, but he laid the 
foundation of the political liberty of England, and 
also of her literary glory. 

When the great Alfred found that the days of the 
years of his life were numbered, in Christian resigna- 
tion he wrote, "I can truly say that so long as I 
have lived I have striven to live worthily, and to 
leave my memory to my people, and to my descen- 
dants in srood works. " Let the memory of Alfred 



82 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

the Great be kept green in the hearts of all English 
speaking people. 

The kingdom rescued and united by the courage 
and wisdom of Alfred the Great, has continued from 
that time to this present time a political unity un- 
broken, whether ruled by Saxon or Norman, whether 
governed as commonwealth or kingdom. 



THE CRUSADES. 83 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

The Ceusades. 

After the death of Charlemagne and of his imme- 
diate descendants the empire he founded fell to 
pieces. France, the most important part of the em- 
pire, was not able to preserve her political unity, her 
kings could not hold their authority against the 
great vassals who claimed their fiefs as patrimonial 
sovereignties, and exercised in their dominions sov- 
ereign rights ; they refused all tribute, save military 
duty. The greatest of these vassals, the Dukes of 
Burgundy, maintained a state equal to that of the 
kings of France, until that far-seeing, crafty and 
most unscrupulous of French kings, Louis XI., re- 
leased himself and his successors from their over- 
weening power, and laid the foundation of a despo- 
tism which culminated under Louis XIV. 

On the continent commerce developed at an earlier 
date than it did in England ; in the south of France 
and in Spain there was trade in money as early as 
the sixth century. The trade for several centuries 
was chiefly in the hands of Jews, who traded to 
such advantage that they grew rich in money and in 
landed estates, and they held important civil offices, 
but the jealousy of native traders, combined with 
religious fanaticism, raised against them a bitter 
persecution ; they were deprived of their privileges, 
and their property was taken from them. 

The further development of industry and com- 
merce was seriously retarded by those martial pil- 
grimages, known as the crusades. The injuries and 
insults heaped upon Christians living in Jerusalem, 
and upon palmers, and all other Christians going on 



84 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

pilgrimages to the holy city, led Pope Sylvester 
II., near the close of the tenth century, to ad- 
dress a letter to the church universal in behalf of the 
church at Jerusalem ; he specially impressed upon 
the Christians of Europe the duty of aiding the suf- 
fering church at Jerusalem. But Europe did not re- 
spond to the appeal. Nor was Pope Gregory VII. 
more successful in his proposed war against the 
Mohammedans, but it is most probable that Gregory 
VII. was not really anxious for the war, — it would 
have interfered with his diplomatic schemes at 
home. Gregory VII. was an intrepid and daring 
man, sagacious and of superior talents, and during 
his whole life he schemed and labored to increase 
the opulence and enlarge the jurisdiction of the See 
of Rome ; and he succeeded in making kings and 
princes tributary to the Pope of Eome as the vice- 
gerent of Christ. 

Not until near the close of the eleventh century did 
the idea, of the holy war become an actual thing, and 
then not through pope or potentate, but through 
Peter, the hermit of Picardy. Peter the Hermit 
went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and beholding 
the cruel treatment to which Christians were sub- 
jected, his spirit burned within him, and staff in 
hand he returned to lay the case before the pope, 
Urban II. But the pope was not then minded to 
move in the matter, but Peter the Hermit was not 
thus to be silenced. He traveled on foot over 
Europe, and by his fervent zeal and eloquence he 
aroused the enthusiasm of princes and of people to 
proclaim a holy war for the recovery of the sepul- 
chre of Christ from the infidel. 

The general enthusiasm was so thoroughly aroused 
that he was regarded as one divinely inspired, and 
his utterances were received as the commandments 
of God. So intense was the public excitement that 
the pope found it necessary to assemble a council 



THE CRUSADES. 85 

and recommend the war, which was called the Cru- 
sade, because the }rarpose was to rescue the sepul- 
chre of Christ from its enemies, and all who engaged 
in the war were required to wear the emblem of the 
cross. 

All classes of people flocked in multitudes to the 
standard of the Cross ; priests left their parishes, 
monks their monasteries, women and children their 
homes, to swell the concourse, believing that to en- 
gage in the crusade was to merit heaven, and to die 
in it was to win the immortal crown of the martyr. 

That army was a mighty host, but comparatively 
few of them returned to tell of the recovery of the 
Holy Sepulchre and of the newly established Chris- 
tian kingdom of Jerusalem, of which Godfrey of 
Bouillon was made king. 

In less than fifty years the eastern conquests, to 
gain which so large a host had perished, were so 
harassed by the enemy that it was found necessary 
to undertake another crusade for their relief. Near 
the middle of the twelfth century the Emperor. Con- 
rad II., and Louis YIL, of France, started on tlie 
second crusade with one hundred and forty thousand 
cavalry. Without accomplishing its purpose that 
vast army wasted away. 

Later in the century, 1187, the great Saracen Sala- 
din besieged Jerusalem and took the city. The fall 
of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Christian king- 
dom, startled and aroused all Europe ? armies for 
the third and most celebrated crusade were raised. 
The Emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, Philip Augustus 
of France, and Biehard the Lion Hearted of England, 
assembled their armies at Nicae in Asia Minor, and 
along the march from that place to Jerusalem 
their lances carried everything before them. 

History and romance have combined to weave a 
charm about the leading men, and the exploits of 
the third and most famous crusade, though it act- 
6 



86 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

ually accomplished but little. Subsequently other 
crusades were undertaken, they were of no great 
magnitude, and none of them reached the Holy 
Land. 

The early force of the crusade fever well nigh de- 
stroyed the industries and trade of the countries of 
Europe, but in the end both manufactures and trade 
were benefited ; the commercial prosperity of the 
Italian republics may be dated from the crusades. 
The art of silk manufacture was brought from the 
east, the first silk factory was established at Pal- 
ermo, and silk soon became the staple manufacture 
of the northern states of Italy. Notwithstanding 
the general excitement created by the crusades, and 
the loss to Europe of large armies of men, there can 
be traced through the twelfth century a tolerably 
steady material and intellectual improvement. The 
twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have 
been aptly termed "light bearing centuries." Under 
their gradually increasing light lay the long and 
crooked path which led on to the Renaissance, or 
Revival of Learning, in the fifteenth century, and 
to the Reformation, or Revival of Religion in the 
sixteenth. 

The thirteenth was an eventful century in the ec- 
clesiastical world, and it was also a most important 
century in. the political development of Europe. As 
far back as the eleventh century no small number 
among the bishops strove after princely expendi- 
ture, and they carried their extravagance so far that 
their large revenues were not sufficient to defray 
their expenses, and they consequently resorted to 
unholy means of raising money. They distributed 
among the people papers of remittance for any pen- 
alties that had been imposed on them within a 
specified limit of* time. The papers of remittance 
were subsequently called indulgences, and the traffic 
in them was carried to such an extent that the papal 



THE CRUSADES. 87 

power took the matter in hand. The pope limited 
the power of the bishops in the matter, but he en- 
larged the scope of the indulgences by giving 
plenary remission of all penalties in this life, and 
some of the indulgences extended the remission to 
the life beyond the grave. The assumption of 
papal power was such that Pope Boniface VIII., in 
the thirteenth century, did not hesitate to declare 
that the pope's power was absolute ; as the vicar of 
Christ he held in his hands all power in church and 
state, and none had a right to question his edicts. 
And Christianity was required to be so taught as to 
make it support these arrogant claims. 

The frugal, laborious, simple hearted monks had 
disappeared, monasteries had become the sumptu- 
ous homes of lazy, vicious men. But strenuous ef- 
forts were made by those who still held the purity 
and simplicity of the faith as it is in Christ tore- 
form both monks and monasteries. The most active 
of the reformers banded themselves into an order 
known as the Order of Mendicant Monks. These 
monks rejected all permanent possessions and rev- 
enues. But alas ! the time came when these re- 
formers, bloated with the greed of rank and lust of 
power, sank into a degeneracy not exceeded by that 
which they came to reform. 

Bat when, in the thirteenth century, they were 
first established in Europe, they were zealous of 
good works, and fearless preachers of the simple 
gospel ; they boldly reproached the church for her 
excess of wealth, and the clergy for the unholiness 
of their lives. They spread themselves over all 
Europe as missionaries and teachers : they were un- 
daunted by hardships, and unmoved by the attrac- 
tions of wealth, or by worldly preferments. At the 
same time they were implicit believers in the su- 
preme power of the pope, and were devout in their 
loyalty to the successor of St. Peter. And the popes 



88 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

were not slow to perceive the advantage to be gained 
through the adherence of this widespread and popu- 
lar order. 

Successive popes granted to the Mendicant Orders 
full liberty to found churches and schools through- 
out the length and breadth of the church. 

The voluntary poverty and earnest piety of the 
Mendicants called forth general enthusiasm and rev- 
erence ; their reputation for sanctity drew eager 
crowds to their churches to drink in their teachings 
and to receive the sacraments from their hands. Per- 
sons of highest rank were eager to become members 
of the" Mendicant Order. Some while in health, 
others when they felt their end to be approaching, 
begged to be admitted to the order, believing that 
to become a Mendicant was to secure special favor 
from God in this world, and in the world to come. 

Inflated with papal privileges and popular favor, 
combined with the weakness of human nature, the 
Mendicants lost their first estate, and by transgres- 
sion fell into pride, arrogance and cruelty. They 
filled the chief places in church and state, their coun- 
sel guided matters ecclesiastical and political. 

They were merciless against all forms of what 
they termed heresy. They hunted to the death all 
persons who were suspected of disloyalty to the See 
of Borne, and tracked them with inquisitive pursuit 
to their homes, which could no longer afford them 
safety. 

Papal legates were sent to hunt out the Wald- 
enses and Albigenses, Christian sects which rejected 
the arrogant claims of the papacy, and lived nearer 
to the simplicity of primitive Christianity. The 
Mendicants eagerly joined the papal legates and 
pushed to the front in the terrible army of persecu- 
tors. Finding neither promises uor threats could 
induce these brave Christians to acknowledge the 
pope as the supreme earthly head of the church they 



THE CRUSADES. 89 

subjected them to tortures too fearful to describe. 
This inquisition for blood gave rise to that terrible 
tribunal, The Court of the Inquisition, a blot on the 
papal church, a blot on humanity. 

The religious, civil and intellectual growth in 
Europe during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
turies under the most adverse conditions is a most 
remarkable proof of the force of the divine fiat, Go 
Forward, spoken not to the Israelites only, but to 
the soul of man, of every race, and for ail time. 

The contest for sovereign power between popes 
and emperors was to some extent paralyzing to the 
forces working out the civilization of western Europe, 
but notwithstanding all drawbacks humanity moved 
forward. 



90 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Civil Prospects Brighten. 

N Early in the fourteenth century Pope Clement V., 
who was a Frenchman, was induced by the king of 
France to transfer the papal court from Rome to 
Avignon, a city in France ; and the papal court was 
held in Avignon for a period of seventy years. 
Affairs in Rome went from bad to worse during that 
time. The conviction on the minds of the papal 
party in the ancient city was that the salvation of 
the city depended on the restoration of the papal 
court to Rome. Near the middle of the century a 
deputation was sent to Avignon to beseech the pope, 
Clement VI., to return to Rome. Rienzi, the elo- 
quent* Roman, was sent with this deputation as spe- 
cial pleader or orator, but neither his eloquence nor 
the prayers of the deputation could effect the desired 
purpose. The disappointed deputation returned to 
Rome, but Rienzi remained at Avignon until the 
following year. He then returned to Rome filled 
with ideas of reform, and he sought to win over the 
magistrates to his views, but in vain ; reform was 
impossible without revolution. To inaugurate the 
needed revolutionary movement he induced the 
papal legate and a hundred cavalryman to act in 
concert with him. He then ordered a general gath- 
ering of the citizens ; in response to the call a large 
multitude assembled, and when brought to order 
Rienzi proclaimed to them a formulated code of law 
for the better government of the state. This was 
received with enthusiastic and unanimous approval, 
and the people were eager to make Rienzi dictator, 
and to invest him at once with the title. He ac- 



CIVIL PROSPECTS BRIGHTEN. 91 

cepted the rulership, but declined the aristocratic 
title of dictator ; he preferred, according 1 to the dem- 
ocratic usage of ancient Rome, to be known as Tri- 
bune of the People. 

A graphic picture of Rienzi and his times is to be 
found in Bulwer's " Eienzi, or the Last of the Tri- 
bunes. " 

Later in the fourteenth century the untiring ef- 
forts of the papal party were crowned with success. 
In 1376 Pope Gregory XT., in order to recover the 
cities and territories which had been wrested from 
the patrimony of St. Peter, and to restore tran- 
quillity to Italy, removed the papal court back to 
Rome. The return was greeted with tumultuous 
acclamations of delight, not only in Rome, but 
throughout Italy. 

After the death of Gregory XI. the unity of the 
Romish church as existing under one head came to 
an end. For the next fifty years the church had two, 
and sometimes three popes, each plotting against 
the other, and each hurling at the other maledictions 
and excommunications. The wars between the papal 
factions were severe drawbacks to the prosperity cf 
the country, and to a large extent they extinguished 
all sense of spiritual religion. 

Conscientious men, believers in the supremacy of 
the pope as the one sole successor of St. Peter, the 
Vicar of Christ, men who were not partisans in the 
strife, were sorely perplexed as to what they should 
believe. 

Among the higher clergy a large number ceased 
to care even for the appearance of godliness. " Why 
should we care ? " their conduct seemed to ask, 
" when the headship of the church is claimed by men 
who are at open war, and are not choice in their 
methods of warfare f This dreadful condition of 
affairs after it was settled did not apparently injure 
the supremacy of the pope, but it was actually an 



92 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

undermining' influence from which the papal power 
never afterward entirely recovered. But from the 
civil and intellectual points of view the j^rospect in 
Europe is brighter than from the ecclesiastical and 
religious. 

From the time the Emperor, Henry V., admitted 
artisans to the privileges of free burghers, German 
cities grew more and more prosperous, their lack of 
maritime advantages was measurably compensated 
by the steady industry and frugality of the citizens. 
Near the middle of the thirteenth century the four 
chief cities, Lubec, Hamburg, Bremen and Dantzic, 
with other less important cities, formed the famous 
commercial confederation known as the Hanseatic 
League. In England the traders of the Hanseatic 
League were favored above all others, because Eng- 
land found in the cities on the Baltic sea an import- 
ant market for her exports. Her vessels at that 
time seldom ventured so far from home as the Medi- 
terranean, nor did French and Italian vessels often 
attempt the long and perilous voyage to the rough 
northern seas. Edward III. was so deeply interested 
in the commercial development of his country that 
he introduced into England the manufacture of fine 
woolen goods, and offered to the oppressed manu- 
facturers of Flanders a safe home in England. And 
the kin s"' s avowed interest in commerce caused the 
occupation of merchant to become an honored call- 
ing in England. Under the long and prosperous 
reign of Edward III. the leading objects of Parlia- 
ment were the establishing of commerce on a solid 
foundation and the securing of political liberty. 
But thereafter the maritime relations of the countries 
of Europe were completely revolutionized by the re- 
discovery of the mariner's compass ; henceforth all 
sea-coast towns or cities became neighbors. 

The merchants of the south of France, and of 
Lombardy, during the thirteenth century had been in 
the habit of remitting money by bills of exchange, 



CIVIL PROSPECTS BRIGHTEN. 93 

charging profit on loans. After the mariner's com- 
pass came into use, this mode of exchange grew to 
such proportions that a bank of deposit for mercan- 
tile accommodation was established at Barcelona in 
the first year of the fifteenth century. About this 
time the Spanish Arabs were a leading people in 
Europe, both in industry and in learning. They 
were so liberal in their interpretations of the Koran 
that its prohibitions did not prevent them from ex- 
celling in music, poetry and romance. To the 
Spanish Arabs Europe is indebted for Algebra, Ge- 
ometry, and our nine graceful figures, and also for 
our decimal system of notation. The Arabs of 
Spain gave special attention to agriculture, both 
practically and as an art, and the} 7 sacredly ob- 
served their Moslem adage, " Who so planteth trees 
and tilleth the ground to make it bring forth fruit 
for man and beast, shall have it reckoned to him in 
heaven. " 

All through the long Arab occupation of Spain the 
native Spaniards held three small kingdoms in the 
northern mountains, and continued to keep up a 
harassing warfare against the conquerors, and about 
the middle of the thirteenth century thev achieved 
a partial conquest. They retook three of the prin- 
cipal cities, pulled down the crescent and replanted 
the cross, though it was not until near the close of 
the fifteenth century that the power of the Arabs 
was entirely broken up, and they were driven out of 
Spain. 

The Palatine school at Paris had grown into the 
foremost school in Europe, and was the first to en- 
large its curriculum so as to embrace the whole cir- 
cle then known of the arts and sciences, and it was 
therefore the first school in Europe to become an 
university. But institutions of learning in other 
countries were not slow in following the lead of 
Paris. Universities were soon to be found in all the 
great countries of Europe. 



94 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

Though the university courses embraced all the 
known arts and sciences, the students devoted them- 
selves chiefly, during the thirteenth century, to phi- 
losophy and to canon and civil law ; and the learned 
doctors wrote and wrangled about Kealism and 
Nominalism and theological subtleties, until they 
must have bewildered themselves, as they have 
ever since bewildered their readers. But even then 
a bright star shone through the intellectual haze. 
Eoger Bacon turned from scholasticism and ab- 
struse unsatisfying subtleties to seek a knowledge 
of nature by means of actual experiment. But alas ! 
Friar Bacon was ahead of his age, and. his methods 
were beyond the comprehension of his fellows. He 
was exiled from his native England, and in France 
he had to undergo ten years of imprisonment. 

To the prevailing influence of the scholasticism of 
the thirteenth century may be attributed the decline 
from the classical literature of the twelfth century, 
but it was fortunate from the fact that the dearth of 
classical literature called forth native literatures. 

All literatures have found their first expression in 
poetry. During the thirteenth century many native 
Italian poets helped to mould their mother tongue 
into her admirable musical proportions, over wiiich 
in the fourteenth century, Petrarch had such perfect 
command. He was the popular poet of his day, 
but his more enduring fame is as the inaugura- 
tor of the intellectual freedom of Europe. He had 
an impassioned love of ancient culture, and was zeal- 
ous in restoring it. The renown of Petrarch incited 
Boccaccio to the study of classic authors, and that 
study led him to devote himself to the work of re- 
storation. 

Dante is called the father of Italian poetry, not 
because he was v the first to write in th6 Italian 
tongue, but because he was, and is, the great poet of 
Italy. 



LIGHT BEARING CENTURIES. 95 



CHAPTER XY. 

Light Bearing Cextubies. 

In Germany the lyric poets, or minnesingers, were 
numerous from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. 
Of German epics of that period the Held en Buch 
and the Nibelungen Lied are the most celebrated. 
These poems contain some graphic pictures of hero- 
ism and of tragedy. And in Germany were the 
Meister-singers, whose productions were serious and 
moral, but were Licking in the power of the greater 
epics, and in the lightness and grace of the min- 
nesingers. 

France was filled with the song of the Trouveurs 
and Troubadours ; the Romaunt du Hose of De Loris 
aided in developing and fashioning the genius of 
Chaucer, who also caught from across the channel 
the "Sweet Iambic," which still remains a favorite 
measure in English poetry. 

Our direct, yet flexible and elegant English, was 
comparatively late in its application to literature. 
Early in the fourteenth century several metrical ro- 
mances were translated from the French. Later in 
that centuiy the first original book was written in 
the English language, as distinguished from the 
Anglo-Saxon. It was entitled "Piers Plowman's 
Vision." The book is a metrical satire upon the 
clergy, and is a spirited portraiture of the times, but 
the measure is uncouth. The first original prose 
work written and published in English, about the 
middle of the fourteenth century, was a book of 
travels by Sir John Mandeville. Honor to Sir John, 
father of English prose, though he apologized for 
writing in so rude a tongue. 



96 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

Later Chaucer wrote bis "Canterbury Tales," 
poems full of vivacity, good feeling 1 and keen obser- 
vation, and they show a quick sense of the ludicrous 
side of life, but are rather lacking in dignity. Chau- 
cer is justly ranked among the great poets of the 
middle ages. Near about the same time John Wy- 
cliffe translated the Bible into English. 

The great advance made in learning" during the 
fourteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth, 
justify the claim made for that hundred and fifty 
years of being the " Herald of the Renaissance, a 
herald whose armor is bright with auroral gleams, 
bright with the rosy light of morning that ushers in 
the day." Not only is the herald bright with morn- 
ing's rosy light, but he flashes his light on the 
portal of that morning, illuminating: three men who 
stand at that portal; three men, Dante, Petrarch, 
and Chaucer, about whose brows the "rosy light" 
condenses into an enduring halo ; three men whom 

"we must measure as the Cretan sage 
Measured the pyramids of ages past. 
By the far reaching shadows which they cast." 



PAR T III . 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Revival of Learning. 

All important epochs which have marked the his- 
tory of the world have grown out of antecedent 
causes, and their lines of demarkation are so inter- 
woven with the past on the one hand and with the 
future on the other, that it is impossible to deter- 
mine definitely the limits of any historical epoch. 

That remarkable outburst of intellectual activity 
which separates Modern Times from the Middle 
Ages, and yet unites them in historic continuity, 
may, in a general way, be reckoned as reaching 
from the fall of the Greek empire, A. D. 1453, to 
the sack of Rome in 1527. Bat for a century or 
more previous to the fall of the Greek empire mon- 
asteries, schools and individuals had been accumu- 
lating manuscripts, coins and medals, and otherwise 
had been striving to reinstate learning. But the 
general diffusion of Greek literature, science and art 
brought about by the exodus of learned men from 
Constantinople, after the capture of the city by the 
Turks, was the immediate cause of the Renaissance 
or Revival of Letters. 

The zeal and enthusiasm for the restoration of 
ancient learning in Italy was at fever heat, but in 
the countries to the north of her the enthusiasm 
kindled slowly. So late as 1661 Dr. Barrow, pro- 
fessor of Greek at Oxford, complains that no students 
attend the lectures on Greek. He says, " I sit alone 
as an attic owl driven out from the society of all 
other birds. " 



98 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

In Italy the enthusiastic zeal in intellectual pur- 
suits, combined with church love, induced quite a 
number of her scholars to endeavor to harmonize 
Christianity and ancient philosophy. In an earlier 
age the pope and the clergy generally would have 
frowned upon the movement and have silenced the 
men who attempted it, but in that age both pope 
and clergy had to some extent caught the spirit of 
the classic past, and became leaders in the effort to 
unite ecclesiastical tradition and idealized paganism. 

As far back as the eleventh century some few fear- 
less Italian scholars had criticised accepted canons, 
and cited precedents of liberty in the early church. 
That free spirit, though often silenced and perse- 
cuted, lived on, vitalizing and expanding the new 
movement by spreading the old Hellenic faith in 
the greatness of the human intellect. That old faith 
reawakened confidence in human ability, and is the 
link which connects ancient and modern history. 

Among the gifted Italian scholars who labored 
with untiring zeal for the revival, or new birth of 
learning, Petrarch may be fairly regarded as the 
chief pioneer. Be was the first to seek coins, 
medals and inscriptions as sources of accurate his- 
torical information, and he was the first to advocate 
public libraries. His constant warfare against the 
narrowness of scholastic theology, and against what- 
ever obstructed the free activity of the intellect en- 
title him not only to the rank of chief pioneer, but to 
the higher position of father of the Italian Renais- 
sance. 

Petrarch was ably seconded by Boccaccio. Boccac- 
cio's conception of life as a blessing to be enjoyed, 
not an evil to be lamented, and his delight in the 
human body, w r hich he taught should be admired 
and cared for, not despised and scouiged as hermits 
and monks had taught, were teachings which came 
as an inspiration to artists, leading them to study 



REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 99 

the human form divine, and to paint beautiful, life- 
like pictures, instead of continuing" to copy the un- 
couth figures of saints that had been blessed by the 
church and were reverenced by the people. 

But that unexampled intellectual activity was not 
confined to reintroducing classic literature and to re- 
generating art. It broke the swaddling bands of 
scholasticism, by which science had been well nigh 
suffocated, and science regaining new life- breath 
gave to the world Copernicus, father of modern as- 
tronomy. 

Copernicus made a careful study of the whole 
reach of mathematical and astronomical science then 
known to the world, and afterward made a careful 
comparison of the various astronomical schemes 
that had been set forth in different ages, including 
the accepted Ptolemaic system. The comparison led 
him to adopt and confirm the scheme of Pythagoras 
as the only one capable of explaining planetary mo- 
tions with a simplicity which in itself is a presump- 
tion of truth. 

After years of preparatory labor he began his 
great work, which was completed about the vear 
1530. 

Copernicus set forth his theory as a hypothesis ; 
he may have chosen this form as a protection against 
the blind, bigoted prejudice of his age, an age in 
which men tenaciously held as religious truth the 
belief that the earth was the fixed centre of creation, 
around which sun, moon and stars were made only 
to revolve, to light, to warm, to make fruitful. 

Through the whole history of our race it has ever 
proved a difficult task to uproot deep seated pre- 
judices, especially so when they assume a religious 
character. It would have been a useless risk in 
Copernicus, and he may not have felt himself pre- 
pared to set forth his profound theory in a positive 
form. 



100 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. < 

In that age to teach that the earth is a planet, a 
member of a system of planets, all moving with a 
double motion around their central sun, was setting 
forth a sublime truth which it had never entered the 
mind of man to conceive. In a later age for declar- 
ing this wonderful truth Galileo was stretched on 
the rack of the inquisition. 

The book of Copernicus was first published by his 
disciple, Rhseticus, at Nuremberg, in 1540. Three 
years later Copernicus wrote a dedication to the 
pope, Paul III. , and with the dedication he himself 
republished the work. The first copy was brought 
to him as he lay on his death-bed ; with his dying 
hand he touched the book, which was to be the 
beacon light signalling men away from the complex 
Ptolemaic to the Copernican system, so sublime in 
its simplicity, sublime in its reach of thought, in its 
awe-inspiring conception of systems of starry worlds 
filling the infinitude of space. 

Although the gifted men who rounded out the 
great theory of Copernicus belong to the beginning 
of modern times, yet the names of Kepler, Galileo, 
Tycho Brahe and Grassi should ever be associated 
with the name of Copernicus. The refracting tele- 
scope for astronomical purposes was one of the great 
inventions of Galileo. 

Among the Saracens the telescope had been long 
in use, but was unknown to Europeans until the mid- 
dle of the thirteenth century, when it was introduced 
by Eoger Bacon. 

Later, by some century or more, the mariner's 
compass was invented by Flavio of Naples. The 
Chinese claim the compass as an ancient invention 
of theirs. They date it as far back as 2634 years 
before the Christian era. They prove from their 
national annals "that the instrument was not only 
used in their country, but that most of the coun- 
tries of the east used their invention to guide the 



REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 101 

course of tHeii ships and of their caravans across 
the deserts long anterior to the time of Christ. 

Without questioning the correctness of their claim 
it is safe to state that it scarcely comes within the 
scope of probability that the Chinese compass was 
ever known in Europe previous to Flavio's inven- 
tion, which in some points differed essentially from 
that of the Chinese, being suited to a different order 
of civilization. 

Without the aid of the mariner's compass Colum- 
bus could not have carried out his bold purpose of 
sailing far to the westward across the stormy Atlan- 
tic in order to find a direct ocean path to India, and 
instead to find a new world, the greatest achievement 
of the Middle Ages. And here again that remarka- 
ble people, the Chinese, claim a long anterior dis- 
covery ; they claim that a party of their Buddhist 
monks voyaged across the Pacific ocean and dis- 
covered the country on the Pacific coast as early as 
A. D. 432, and in 464 a second expedition came to 
the country, and on their return the account of their 
voyage and discovery was entered in the Chinese 
Year Book. But their discoveries, as those of the 
Norsemen, and of the traditional discoveries of the 
Welsh, were of no value to the world. Columbus re- 
mains the great discoverer. 

But to the old Saxon love of liberty, law and order 
brought over from freedom-loving England is to be 
ascribed the true greatness of the hemisphere which 
Columbus added to the map of the w T orld. 

The Teuton love of liberty transplanted in America 
struck deep root, and brought forth a vigorous 
growth of new activities and new ideas, which have 
quickened the pulse of the world, and are develop- 
ing on both sides of the Atlantic a higher civiliza- 
tion, a broader humanity, and a simpler., purer Chris- 
tianity. 

Ever thus through conditions suited to their 
7 



102 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

growth and strength God has led and still leads the 
children of men onward to the fulfillment of His own 
great purpose. 

He stayed the conquering Turks when, flushed 
w r ith the pride of conquest, they threatened the over- 
throw of southern Europe, and made the friends of 
learning tremble with anxious fear lest the Moslem 
should destroy the young culture in the bud and re- 
duce Europe to a state of darkness deeper than that 
which followed the conquests of the Goths and van- 
dals. But in the providence of God Europe was 
saved from the library-destroying people ; scholars 
took heart again and turned to their work with re- 
newed assiduity, and the fertile brains of inventors 
labored in travail, until they brought to birth the 
great invention of the world, the Art of Printing. 

This most important invention came at a critical 
juncture, though following in direct line of succes- 
sion the invention of paper and the rebirth of learn- 
ing. It came to make that learning a sure and per- 
manent blessing; it came to scatter with liberal 
hand the seeds of culture broadcast over the w r orld. 

Stamping or printing from carved blocks of wood 
had been done from a high antiquity in China. In 
Europe the first efforts towards printing were made 
in Holland. In the early part of the fourteenth cen- 
tury the Hollanders carved raised figures of saints 
on blocks of wood, and carved words below the 
figures. Subsequently blocks of wood were cut into 
tablets and the tablets were filled with carved writ- 
ing ; they were called block books. Some few are 
still extant. Such was the humble beginning of the 
world renewing art. 

Those honored Germans, Guttenburg, Fust and 
Schaeffer, were the fathers of the great art which 
they gradually perfected without the aid of the 
learned Italian scholars, who were eagerly seeking, 
but slowly transcribing, the higher branches of 
learning. 



REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 103 

The first known book issued from the press of Gut- 
tenburg, Fust and Schaeffer is the Mazarin Bible, 
dated 1450. It is called the Mazarin Bible because 
it was found in the library of Cardinal Mazarin. 

In various cities of Germany, Holland and France 
printing presses were established, and all the chief 
cities of Italy soon followed their example, and in 
those monasteries which were rich in manuscripts 
printing presses were set up. In England William 
Caxton established the printing press in the year 
1472, twenty years before Columbus started on his 
world discovering voyage. 

In 1474 printing presses were introduced into 
Spain. The art of printing so perfectly met the 
need of the time that the fathers of the invention and 
their coadjutors toiled night and day at their presses 
to meet the demand. The Bible was carefully re- 
vised, many interpolations being cast out, — and 
scholars by the score were employed on the classics 
to ascertain the correct rendering of sentences, and 
to prepare generally for the press. 



104 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Sir Thomas More — Erasmus. 

The interest in preserving- and disseminating- classic 
culture was so absorbing- that it repressed original 
production. The first important original work of the 
Renaissance comes from England, Sir Thomas More's 
"Utopia." Some writers claim that the work is based 
on the Republic of Plato; while to some extent the 
claim may be just, yet the books are widely different. 
In "Utopia," the conception of human relations is purer, 
higher, and more delicate, and the sense of justice is 
finer. Sir Thomas More's insight into human nature, 
his perception of its better part and of its improva- 
bility, will secure to the book an abiding- place in the 
literature of Europe and of America, though its name 
has been made a synonym for the impracticable. On 
its first publication the work had an extensive popu- 
larity. 

The rank of foremost scholar of the Renaissance 
may be fairly accorded to Erasmus, who, " with trench- 
ant blade unsparing-," of irony and of invective, slew 
the giants of ignorance and of superstition which 
blocked up the path of learning*. His "Praise of 
Folly," dedicated to his friend Sir Thomas More, is a 
poignant satire against princes and others in authority 
and ag-ainst the mendicant monks. The popularity 
of the work was immense, eight hundred copies were 
sold as soon as it issued from the press. 

Erasmus wrote chiefly on theology, though he by 
no means confined himself to that subject. His Collo- 
quies profess to be jvritten for the instruction and the 
amusement of youth, but both the instruction and 
amusement are at the expense of prevalent church 



SIB THOMAS MOBE— ERASMUS. 105 

errors in doctrine and usage. The eagerness to obtain 
the book was surprising; several thousands of copies 
were sold in less than a year. Dr. Hallam, in speak- 
ing of Erasmus, says: "He was the first conspicuous 
enemy of the ignorance and superstition of his time, 
the first restorer of Christian morality on a scriptural 
foundation, but he was averse to radical changes ; his 
desire was to purify and preserve the unbroken com- 
munion of the Catholic church." But it was too 
late; that unbroken communion had been too sorely 
worsted by the anathematising contentions of contem- 
porary popes, and by the general wickedness of the 
times. All the force of character and diplomatic skill 
of Nicholas V. were necessary to strengthen and con- 
firm the power of the church, that she might be able, 
even for a while longer, to hold her power and com- 
munion unbroken. 

When Nicholas V. was elected to the papacy in 
1447, while no opposition was made to the spiritual 
authority of the pope, a conspiracy was formed to 
arouse republican enthusiasm, and prevent the pope 
from attempting to seize the reins of political power. 
But the times were not ripe for the successful carry- 
ing out of the purpose of the conspirators. 

Nicholas crushed the conspiracy, caused the leaders 
to be arrested, and the chief movers to be put to 
death; he subdued the states of the church and 
brought them under the absolute temporal power of 
the papacy. Nicholas V. saw, from the course of 
events for more than a hundred years, that the 
spiritual despotism established by Gregory VII. no 
longer stood firm, no longer controlled the minds and 
consciences of men, and he resolved that the undefined 
or ill-defined temporal power of the papacy should 
become a clearly defined temporal despotism and 
serve as a strong support to the tottering spiritual 
despotism of the papacy. 

Nicholas V. turned the Mausoleum of Hadrian into 



106 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

a fortress, and spared no expense in rendering* it im- 
pregnable ; the bridge of St. Angelo he had defended 
by walls and strong* outworks, so that, if occasion re- 
quired, he could hold in command the city of Rome. 

But, looking fairly over the turbulent and lawless 
condition of the times, the autocratic and martial 
course of Nicholas V. seems to have been a necessity. 
Absolute power in the hands of so able a man was, in 
such times, an unquestionable good to the people. 
He repressed turbulence and restored order, and he 
also restored the architectural grandeur of Rome and 
made her the centre of southern culture. He w r as the 
friend of the new learning, and he founded the Vatican 
library. His pontificate was brief, though full of 
activity; his death was lamented both by churchmen 
and scholars. 

From the time of Nicholas Y. the history of Italy, 
through many ages, is closely interwoven with the 
history of the papacy. During the half century fol- 
lowing the death of Nicholas V. the papal changes 
have been compared "to the shifting scenes in a 
tragedy, in which one sees a passion for magnificence, 
an unblushing cynicism, a selfish cupidity and a savage 
ferocity of temper." 

To study the life of Sextus IV. is to behold a tissue 
of all crimes. In the last quarter of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, for the extermination of Moors, Jews and here- 
tics, he established the Court of the Inquisition in 
Spain. It makes the blood run cold to read of the 
tortures inflicted, and of the agonies of the thou- 
sands who were burned at the stake. 

The Jewish population were utterly despoiled; they 
were robbed of their property and driven out of the 
country penniless. Hundreds perished from exposure 
and from famine before they could reach the sea coast, 
and to those who li^ed to gain the ships no friendly 
ports were open. Italy, blinded by a religious fanati- 
cism as far removed from the religion of Christ as the 



SIR THOMAS MORE— ERASMUS 107 

nadir is from the zenith, closed her ports against the 
robbed and exiled Jews. Hundreds of the escaped 
remnants of that people perished from direst need in 
the harbors of Genoa and Naples; a fearful rebuke 
to those who claim that the former days were better 
than these latter days. 

Under the pontificate of Innocent VIII. the country 
about Eome was overrun with brigands and mur- 
derers; assassinations were committed with impunity, 
even in the city of Rome. The pope determined that 
the patrimony of St. Peter should derive profit out of 
this lawless condition; so he established in Eome a 
bank for traffic in indulgences. Every crime had its 
pardon price. But his successor, Alexander VI., 
though he was an embodiment of the very genius* of 
evil, was a sagacious man, of sound judgment, and 
profound diplomacy. He resolved to repress the ban- 
ditti and establish order in Eome, and he carried out 
his resolution, but he held in his own hands the con- 
trol of poisoners and assassins. The pope's favor was 
as dangerous as his frown. Alexander VI. often be- 
stowed large wealth on men for whom he affected spe- 
cial fondness, and shortly after the bestowal of the 
bounty upon any rich man, cardinal or bishop, or lay- 
man, he would have that man adroitly poisoned, and 
confiscate his whole estate by appropriating it to the 
See of Eome, which meant himself. 

The main objects of the life of Alexander VI. were 
the advancement of his family, and the consolidation 
of the temporal power of the papacy. His family 
name was Borgia; his son, Caesar Borgia, was a famous 
general, and an infamous man, — a chip of the old 
block. The death of the pope was an untimely one, 
brought about by the machinations of the father and 
son against the life of another. Cardinal Adrian, the 
richest man in the college of Cardinals, w r as invited by 
the pope and his son to dine with them; the wine to 
be served to the Cardinal was prepared according to 
the most sure and subtle art of the poisoner. 



108 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

The gracious invitation of the pontiff and his son 
was courteously accepted by the Cardinal, who secretly 
sent large bribes to the butler; in that case, the old 
adage proved true, "Like master, like man." The 
large bribe outweighed the butler's loyalty, pure wine 
was served in the Cardinal's cup, and the poisoned 
wine in the cups of the pope and his son; the pope 
fell a victim to his own crime. 

It is related by a historian of the time, that "when 
the death of the pope was made public, all Rome was 
filled with indescribable gladness." The strong vital 
force of Caesar Borgia enabled him to recover from the 
terrible poison. After some vicissitudes of fortune, he 
died a papal prisoner in Spain, under the pontificate 
of Julius II. 



DR. MARTIN LUTHER. 109 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Dr. Martin Luther. 

Leo X. was the youngest son of the great Lorenzo 
di Medici of Florence, and like his father, he was a 
scholar and a friend to learning*. It is said of him 
that "he gave more study to classic authors and to a 
pure Latinity than he gave to the teachings of the 
church, or to the writings of the fathers." 

Pope Leo X. possessed his father's urbanity but 
lacked his strength of character ; and Pope Leo's relig- 
ious convictions sat lightly on him. He did not hesi- 
tate to follow papal precedent in imposing on the 
superstitious credulity of his people, when he could 
thereby raise money to gratify his love of magnificent 
surroundings. Following the example of Julius II. he 
renewed the scandalous traffic in indulgences. 

The renewal of that abominable traffic was the enter- 
ing wedge, driven by the great hammer of the Reform- 
ation, which split in twain the visible church. 

After the great Arian controversy in the fourth and 
fifth centuries, and in the eighth century the persecu- 
tions of the Paulicians on the charge of heresy, and 
the subsequent persecution of their spiritual descend- 
ants, the Albigenses and the Waldenses, who from 
Toulouse, and the valleys of the Alps, had spread 
largely over Southern Europe, there had been no 
movements of deviation from the line of belief pre- 
scribed by the church, though there had been many, 
and some remarkable instances, of personal effort to 
bring about reforms in the church. 

During the thirteenth century, the good and fear- 
less English bishop, Robert Greathead, reproved the 
worldly-minded canons of his cathedral of Lincoln ; this 



110 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

led to an angry disputation, and the bishop of Lincoln 
determined to go to Avignon, and lay the matter 
before the pope. During his stay at Avignon, the 
spirit of Bishop Greathead was stirred within him at 
beholding the corrupt state of ecclesiastical society. 

The English bishop was invited to preach before 
the Holy Father and his Court. The bishop preached, 
but not with enticing words of man's wisdom; in the 
simple majesty of truth, he enforced the necessity of 
obedience to Christian duty, insisting that the higher 
the position a man held in the church, the more press- 
ing were the obligations of duty upon him. Bishop 
Greathead did not hesitate to declare that if the Holy 
Father allowed himself to be moved by any motives 
whatsoever, contrary to the teachings of Christ and 
his Apostles, he thereby separated himself from the 
body of Christ, which is the Church. The bishop went 
further and affirmed that obedience to a pope, who has 
by wrong doing severed himself from the body of 
Christ, is apostasy to Christ. 

On his return to England, Bishop Greathead placed 
the secular affairs of his diocese in the hands of the 
civil authorities and gave himself entirely to the 
work of general pastor and Christian teacher. He 
visited every part of his diocese, preaching in country 
places, and in every city, town and hamlet. 

The pope sent to the bishop of Lincoln a mandate, 
ordering him to confer upon an Italian youth, a favorite 
with the pope, a benefice in his diocese. To the man- 
date of the pope, the bishop replied: "No considera- 
tion can induce me to confer a benefice upon any one 
who is not qualified to perform its duties." This reply 
exasperated the pope; he vowed that the contuma- 
cious bishop of Lincoln should feel the weight of his 
power, but the cardinals held him back. They knew 
the independent spirit of the English church, and they 
feared the augmented force of public discontent which 
would be called forth if the pope were to issue a bull 



DR. MARTIN LUTHER. Ill 

of excommunication against the bishop of Lincoln. 
They knew that Robert of Lincoln was greatly be- 
loved and highly esteemed as a preacher and as a 
theologian. 

Matthew, of Paris, writes: "After the death of 
Bishop Greathead, the pope determined to avenge 
himself by having the body of the bishop removed 
from consecrated ground, but before the order was 
issued, in a dream the pope saw the bishop of Lin- 
coln standing before him, regarding him with a stern 
countenance, and, raising his crosier, struck him sharply 
on the side. For several days, the pope affirmed, he 
felt the smart of the blow from the bishop's crosier." 
No order of disinterment was issued, the remains of 
the undaunted bishop continued to rest peacefully in 
the God's-acre at Lincoln, while the influence of his 
spirit was a beacon light, beckoning men on to seek 
truth in Christian doctrine and holiness in Christian 
life. 

Though a hundred years lay between, John Wy- 
cliffe was the son — in the gospel — of Robert Great- 
head. Wycliffe was rector of Lutterworth, in the dio- 
cese of Lincoln; he was a man of "vast understand- 
ing, invincible courage and indefatigable zeal." His 
preaching and writing were as subversive of existing 
prejudices and interests, as they were in keeping with 
genuine Christianity. Not only in England but on 
the Continent, the writings of Wycliffe were spiritual 
seeds that bore valuable fruit in the Master's vineyard. 
John Huss and Jerome, of Prague and other reformers 
and martyrs w r ere his spiritual children. Their teach- 
ings and their death so moved on the hearts and the 
minds of the men of the German states that when, in 
riper times, the great German reformer appeared, a 
host of efficient friends stood staunchly by him. 

When the righteous wrath of Dr. Martin Luther, 
aroused by Tetzel's nefarious traffic in indulgencies, 
led him to propound his immortal theses, he had no 



112 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

more thought of separating* from the church than had 
Dr. Robert Greathead, bishop of Lincoln, when he 
preached his fearless sermon in the presence of the 
pope. And Luther was walking- in the spiritual path 
pointed out by the bishop of Lincoln, when he re- 
nounced communion with the papal church. In the 
presence of pope and cardinals the bishop had de- 
clared that obedience to a pope who, by wrong- doing-, 
had severed himself from the body of Christ, was apos- 
tasy to Christ. 

Previous to the conference with Cajetan, Luther's 
sole object was reformation in the church. He fondly 
believed that when the shameless abuse of the papal 
prerogative became known to the pope he would not 
only disavow all participation in the infamous traffic, 
but would issue a brief against the abuse. 

That his fond belief was unfounded, that his hope 
of reformation in the church did not, under existing 
circumstances, come within the scope of things attain- 
able, was made evident through the conference at Augs- 
burg. The conduct of that conference plainly revealed 
the papal purpose to silence the opposers of a scheme 
which so readily filled the papal coffers, as well as 
those of an ambitious and unchristian archbishop. 

When Pope Leo X. first learned of Luther's stand 
against the sale of indulgences he did not regard it as 
a matter worthy of serious consideration, thinking that 
an outburst of indignation from an overscrupulous 
monk would soon expend itself, and he might hence- 
forth be kept silent by the force of elegant sarcasm, 
or the prospect of a bishop's mitre. But the pope had 
soon to learn that the cause of reform in Germany, 
though mainly voiced by one man, was staunchly sup- 
ported by a formidable number of adherents, and 
against such a cause elegant sarcasm was a worthless 
weapon, and a bishop's mitre an unheeded bribe; not- 
withstanding the pope could not divest himself of the 
idea that to silence Brother Martin by inducing or 



DR. MARTIN LUTHER. 113 

compelling' him to retract, or by excommunication, 
would be to nip in the bud the flower of reform. 

In order to lead Luther to retract by favor or by 
force he sent Cardinal Cajetan to Augsburg:, and cited 
Luther to appear before him in that city to discuss 
the points in dispute. 

In obedience to the pope's mandate Luther repaired 
to Augsburg, and presented himself before Cardinal 
Cajetan. In the early conferences the manner of the 
cardinal was considerate and gentle. He desired by 
a show of affection to induce Brother Martin to re- 
tract, but not being able to stifle the conscientious 
scruples of the intrepid reformer with his cloak of 
kind seeming, he appealed to the authority of the 
church to compel the obstinate Saxon monk to retract. 
But neither persuasive affection nor the thunder of 
authority were sufficient to make Martin Luther rec- 
reant to the truth as it is in Christ. Luther desired 
to discuss the points at issue in Christian charity, 
but the cardinal did not wish discussion nor investi- 
gation. His purpose was to induce or compel Luther 
to give up the ground he had taken, to retract all he 
had preached and published against what he termed 
the corruptions of the church, and to return as a peni- 
tent to her bosom. To the cardinal's reiterated order, 
"Retract," the dauntless reformer answered, "Con- 
vince me of wrong, and I am ready to renounce the 
wrong. I stand by the word of God, by the whole 
word of God. and by none other than the word of God." 



114 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Diet of Worms. 

Luther perceived the uselessness and the danger of 
prolonging the conference, and by the aid of friends 
he quietly left Augsburg and returned to his post at 
Wittenberg. 

Finding that Luther was beyond the grasp of his 
power, the Cardinal grew angry and vindictive; he 
and the friends of Tetzel joined forces to induce Pope 
Leo X. to issue a Brief against Dr. Martin Luther, 
condemning his teachings, adjudging his writings to 
the flames, and ordering him to confess his faults and 
to seek the clemency of the pope within sixty days or 
he would be cast out of the church. This Brief deter- 
mined Dr. Martin Luther to withdraw from the papal 
church before Pope Leo X. could issue the bull of ex- 
communication against him. And in order that his 
withdrawal from the church of Rome should be gen- 
erally known, he posted up a public announcement 
that on the next morning at nine o'clock the papal 
law books and the papal Brief would be burned in 
front of the Elster gate. A multitude were present to 
witness the scene ; with Luther came Melanchthon and 
a number of other doctors and masters. On the burn- 
ing pile Luther flung first the decretals and then the 
papal Brief. By that act Dr. Martin Luther declared 
himself no longer subject to the Pope of Borne; for 
whoever, according to the custom of the times, pub- 
licly burned the statute book of his sovereign thereby 
declared that he was no longer subject to his authority, 

After Luther had taken this decisive step, he began 
with renewed ardor to confirm the doctrines he had 
taught. 



DIET OF WORMS. 115 

And his powerful teaching- was as new life-breath 
to the souls of the people, who began to see more 
clearly the depth and the simplicity of the doctrines 
he taught, to feel the need of g-oing- directly to the 
Father in heaven, through Jesus the Saviour of men, 
for pardon of sin and for grace to help in every time 
of need. 

Dr. Martin Luther's beloved and constant friend 
was Dr. Philip Melanchthon. Melanchthon stood by 
Luther with the cherishing love of a brother through 
all the labors and the perils of the Reformation. 
Melanchthon's discreetness and gentleness tempered 
the zeal and intrepid courage of Luther, and in turn 
the ardent, undaunted spirit of Luther gave firmness 
and vigor to the gentler spirit of Melanchthon. 
Luther was wont to say, "The Apology of Philip 
Melanchthon is worth all the writings of all the 
doctors of the church put together, not excepting- 
those of St. Augustine, though amongst them St. 
Augustine unquestionably holds the first place." 

After the election of Charles Y. as Emperor the first 
Congress or Diet was held in the city of Worms. The 
pope had sent a Brief to the Emperor demanding- 
that he should enforce the ball of excommunication 
issued against Martin Luther under an imperial edict. 
The Emperor so far acceded to the urgent demand of 
the pope that he caused to be drawn up and laid 
before the Diet a proposition to the effect that Martin 
Luther should be arrested and his protectors tried 
for high treason. The Diet would not consider the 
proposition, but by a general vote of that body it was 
conceded that Dr. Martin Luther should be cited to 
appear before the Diet to give information concerning- 
his doctrines and his books, and further, should the 
said Dr. Martin Luther fail to obey the citation he 
should henceforth be treated as an avowed heretic. 

On receiving the summons Luther expressed his 
readiness to obey, and with three friends set out for 



116 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

Frundsberg, clapped ^m on _i 
iTi^/^ir^fo^ i« the «« oi 

^^•K^a^dtSX^noon o f the 
■tSouthe^^^^^^^ledthe 

questions were asked, w ^ lt »"" nt some por- 

r" en f &£? *r&&! "elmy Ss,» an-wSed 

tions of them * J- nave "" , , , - fi t c i ass I have 
Luther, "into three classes In the farst cla 
set forth simple, evangehoaltiuthB p^ roie 

friend and ^fj^^ iti a&ed co^upt 
of these. In the secona "•» h i ch no one can 

laws and doctrines of the W a ^X n conscie nce of 
deny have tormented and martyre a tne 
Christians; to retract to* , w odd be to J ^ ^ 

SSS J55 S^^-£3*i* ** was 



DIET OF WORMS. 11 ? 

befitting-, but to retract them would be to abet god- 
lessness and tyranny. In defence of my books I can 
only say in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, c If I 
have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil, but if well, 
wiry smitest thou me?'" 

Luther's speech was conclusive and respectful; he 
closed with an earnest warning to the emperor, and 
to the electors, of the danger of trying to promote 
peace, by condemnation of the Divine Word. 

The courage, the clearness, and the modest candor of 
the speech, delighted every fair-minded man of the 
Diet, but to the prejudiced, it was cause of offence; 
the official Eck, commissioned by the emperor, re- 
proved him for having spoken impertinently, but at 
the same time held out the promise, that if he would 
retract the offensive articles, his other writings should 
be dealt with fairly. Eck demanded of Luther a plain 
answer, without horns, whether or not he would re- 
tract. "I will give you an answer," replied Luther, 
"with neither horns nor teeth; unless I am refuted 
from the Scriptures, or by evident reason, I cannot 
retract; my conscience is bound to adhere to truth, to 
the Word of God. It is clear that popes and councils 
have erred and contradicted themselves, and therefore, 
upon such authority, I cannot and will not retract 
anything; my conscience must be clear before God." 

After some further discussion, Luther concluded 
with the words that grew into the hearts of his follow- 
ers, "Here I stand; I can do no otherwise; God help 
me. Amen." 

That evening the emperor closed the Diet; he 
granted to Luther a safe conduct for twenty-one days, 
with the command that he should not preach on his 
way back to Wittenberg. 

The Elector of Saxony, Frederic the Wise, saw 

clearly that Luther had nothing to hope from the 

favor of the emperor; the elector was attached to 

Luther and to his cause, but did not wish to draw 

8 



118 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

upon himself and upon Saxony the displeasure of the 
emperor in this strait, so he devised means to get Dr. 
Martin safely out of the way for a time, until condi- 
tions were less threatening". 

Dr. Luther was informed of the plan of the elector ; 
it was not a plan to his liking, but his affection and 
deference toward the elector overmastered his dislike 
of the arrangement. April 26th he left Worms, and 
on his journey he stopped at several places to visit 
friends and relations, and without regard to the com- 
mand of the emperor, he preached three times at dif- 
ferent places, not daring, he affirmed, to permit the 
Word of God to be bound. 

In the gathering twilight of Saturday, May 4th, as 
his carriage entered the wooded heights, beyond 
Altenstein, armed horsemen dashed out of the wood, 
and with terrible threats, ordered the driver to stop 
on the instant; the horsemen pulled Luther out of the 
carriage, pushed him on a horse and hurried him off 
at full speed, leaving the terrified driver to go on his 
way unmolested. 

About eleven, in the thick darkness of the night, the 
horsemen with their prisoner reached the Fortress of 
Wartburg. 

Soon the news flew over the country that Dr. 
Luther had been seized and carried off by his enemies, 
news which filled the hearts of thousands with pro- 
found grief; meanwhile Luther was held at the Wart- 
burg as Knight prisoner. On reaching the Fortress 
he had to lay aside his monkish garb and assume the 
dress of a Knight and let a full beard grow. In the 
castle he was known as the Knight George. Cranach's 
wood-cut of the Knight George shows an ample mus- 
tache and a full curling beard. As Knight prisoner 
he was treated with highest consideration, the apart- 
ments of the castle were free to him, and in the com- 
pany of a trusty servant he was permitted to take 
walks and rides in the surrounding country. 



DIET OF WORMS. 119 

After Luther had left Worms, the papal legate, by 
commission of the emperor, prepared an edict against 
Luther, to go into effect at the expiration of the safe 
conduct granted by the emperor. In addition to the 
setting forth of the bull of excommunication, the 
Edict declared that wherever the heretic Dr. Martin 
Luther was found, he was to be taken captive and 
handed over to the emperor. 

The Edict of Worms shows to advantage the wisdom 
of the wise Frederic. 

Luther, safe in the Wartburg, as Knight George, 
had the privilege of communicating by letter with his 
friends in Wittenberg, through Spalatin, the spiritual 
advisor of the elector. 

For the comfort and edification of his friends in 
Wittenberg, Luther wrote an exposition of the thirty- 
seventh psalm, which was sent under cover to Spalatin. 
In the quiet of his seclusion he was continuously at 
work writing expositions of scripture and other works, 
in order to impress on the hearts and minds of his 
people a fuller conception of Christian duty nnd 
Christian privileges. To his father he dedicated a 
work on monastic vows in consideration of his father's 
protest against his entering a convent. 

But Luther longed for active work; he complained 
that he had to sit idly in his Patmos, declaring that 
he would rather go to the stake in the active service 
of God than to stagnate in that solitude. 

But meanwhile, in the outer world, the religious 
movement he had started took such deep hold on the 
people that it continued to grow and strengthen, not 
only in Wittenberg but through the country gener- 
ally, notwithstanding the Edict of Worms had been 
published in the states, cities and towns of the em- 
pire. 

In addition to the feeling of solitude which op- 
pressed Luther, his mind was ill at ease on account of 
the news that reached him from without of the wild 



120 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

fanaticism that had broken out at Zwickau, and of the 
passionate forces which had been aroused by Carl- 
stadt in Wittenberg-. Luther believed that Carlstadt's 
course brought discredit on the gospel. This so 
stirred his oppressed spirit that, contrary to the ad- 
vice of the elector, he resolved to leave the Wartberg. 

His final departure from the fortress was on March 
1st. He journeyed through Jena to Borna, where he 
lodged with a city official. From Borna, he wrote to 
the elector, informing" him of his resolve to throw 
himself entirely on God, and in that trust to return to 
Wittenberg. Luther writes: 'I shall return under a 
far higher protection than yours; nay, I hold that I 
can offer your highness a surer protection than your 
highness can offer me. 'God only is the worker here, 
therefore he who has the most faith will be able to 
give the most protection." 

Luther reached Wittenberg safely on March 6th, 
and on the Sunday following, to the great joy of his 
congregation, he preached in his old pulpit; and with 
his accustomed zeal he threw himself into his work in 
all its branches, both in the church and in the uni- 
versity. 

Together with Melanchthon and a few other co-work- 
ers, he revised his translation into German of the New 
Testament. The work was completed by September, 
and in reference to that Testament, an opponent, 
Cocklgeus, writing shortly after its appearance says, 
" Luther's New Testament is multiplied by the printers 
in a most remarkable manner; shoemakers, women 
and any and every lay person who can read German, 
read that Testament greedily as the fountain of all 
truth, and by repeated readings they so impress it on 
their memories that they quote scripture even to the 
doctors of theology." 

Luther, with Melanchthon, Bugenhagen and a few 
others, then began to translate into German the He- 
brew Bible. To translate the Old Bible was a far 



DIET OF W0R3IS. 121 

more difficult work, and required the labor of several 
years to complete it. To give to a people the Bible 
in their native tongue is to bestow upon them an in- 
estimable blessing. 



122 THE JEW AND THE GER3IAK 



CHAPTER XX. 

Characteristics of Luther. 

The new literature of Germany opens with Luther, 
Reuchlin and Erasmus. The corrected Greek texts 
of the New Testament by Reuchlin, and the more 
widely known corrected and revised texts of Eras- 
mus, gave to scholars a purified version of the New 
Testament, but Luther gave the whole Bible to the 
people by translating it into their native tongue. Early 
in the year 1524 Luther published the German hymn- 
book. It was a small book, containing only eight 
hymns; of these, three were adaptations from the 
psalms, the others were his compositions. During 
the year, he added twenty more of his hymns, and 
still later twelve more, among them that grand hymn 
beginning, " A mighty Fortress is our God." 

Soon other poetic natures were inspired to follow 
his example, and a full German hymn-book went forth 
to all the churches in cities in towns and in country 
places, and it went also into the homes of the people. 
In his preface Luther says, "I am not of opinion that 
the gospel should be employed to strike down and 
destroy all the arts. I would rather that all the arts, 
especially music, should be employed in the service of 
Him who created them and gave them to man." 

Luther earnestly counseled the importance of afford- 
ing a liberal education to the young. He recommends 
that the cloisters of the mendicant orders should be 
converted into schools for boys and girls. 

In contemplating the character of Dr. Martin Luther 
we perceive that he was a remarkable coalescence of 
the opposite elements in human nature. "The gravel 
and the gold i-olled together in the rich channel of his 



CHABA CTEEIST1CS OF L UTHEE. 123 

mind, and he made no effort to exhibit the one or to 
conceal the other." Luther was a practical man of 
action, and he was a dreamy mystic; he was brusque, 
even to roughness, and he was capable of exquisite 
tenderness; he was the very soul of obstinacy, yet 
always open to conviction. Heine says, "Luther was 
unconquerable as the storm that uproots the oak, 
and he was gentle as the zephyr that dallies with the 
violet," 

Krauth says, " Luther won the trophies of power 
and the garlands of affection; potentates feared him, 
and little children played with him. He has monu- 
ments in marble and bronze, medals in silver and in 
gold, but his noblest monument is the best love of the 
best hearts, and the purest impression of his image 
has been left on the souls of regenerated nations. He 
knew how to command, for he had learned to obey. 
Had he been less courageous, he would have at- 
tempted nothing ; had he been less cautious, he would 
have ruined all; the torrent was resistless, but the 
banks were deep." The eloquent Catholic Bishop, 
Bossuet, writing of Luther, says, "He possessed a 
strength of genius, a vehemence in discourse, a living 
and impetuous eloquence, which entranced and rav- 
ished the people." And again Bishop Bossuet writes, 
"Luther was the trumpet, or rather the thunder, the 
lightning, which has roused the world from its leth- 
argy. Tt was not so much Luther who spoke, as God, 
whose lightning burst from his lips." 

Luther rejected the aid of the sword; during his life 
there was no war. His watchwords were, truth and 
right must conquer. 

The two men whose lives and labors have exerted 
the most important and far-reaching influence on the 
Western world, an influence destined to be felt to 
earth's remotest bounds, were a Jew of Tarsus and a 
German monk. 

The gospel of Christ, so faithfully taught by the 



124 THE JEW AND THE GEE M AN 

gteat Jew, in season and out of season, had, in the 
onward march of the ages, been perverted from its 
course of pure blessing and turned into the channel of 
superstition. Human perversity, narrowness, igno- 
rance and ambition had changed the spirit of brotherly 
helpfulness into that of cruel oppression. Everywhere 
men groaned under the yoke of superstition and of 
despotism. 

The German monk, with intrepid hand, broke the 
chain which bound men under the heavy, yoke of re- 
ligious superstition, and with his clarion voice aroused 
them to resist the intolerance of mere authority and 
to base both their belief and action on the eternal 
principles of right, — of Christian truth. 

The principles which Luther labored to reinstate 
have had a three-fold development; through the en- 
franchisement of the human mind, Christianity has been 
interpreted to human reason; the thoughtful study 
of scripture, on which he so strenuously insisted, has 
given rise to biblical criticism, and resistance to the 
intolerance of mere authority has led to constitutional 
liberty. 

In the German reformation, the towering figure of 
Martin Luther fills the fore-front ; in the Swiss reforma- 
tion, no one figure stands so conspicuously forth ; there 
are several leaders, but foremost among them stands 
Ulrich Zwinglius, who has been aptly termed the 
Apostle of Switzerland. 

The reformation in Germany began with the earnest 
efforts of one man against a glaring abuse ; in Switzer- 
land, there was united action among several men 
wiiose souls had been illuminated with the light of the 
gospel, but they looked to Zwinglius as the prime 
mover in the great w r ork. 

In the German reformation the tendency was from 
one point to extend out and include many; in the 
Swiss reformation the line of action was from diversity 
to unity. 



ULRICH ZWINGLI. 125 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

Ulrich Zwingli. 

Looking back to the early years of the ministry of 
Ulrich Zwinglius, or Zwingli, we may trace the steps 
by which he was gradually led on to the great work 
of reformation in his native republic. 

When, in the year 1515, Francis I. invaded Italy, the 
pope sent to the Swiss cantons, or states, to enlist in 
his cause the brave Swiss, who, on previous occasions, 
had served him so valiantly. To the call of the pope 
the Swiss soldiery promptly responded. Ulrich 
Zwingli was then parish priest at Glaris, and among 
the Swiss an ancient custom made it the duty of 
priests to attend the army in order to celebrate divine 
service, to assist the dying, and by their presence and 
exhortations to lessen the disorder to which soldiers 
are generally inclined. When called by the soldiers 
of Glaris to go with them, not for a moment did 
Zwingli shirk the duty, though he disapproved of 
war except in defense of home and country, and it was 
a sad break in his cherished habits of study. 

The opportunity afforded by his marches in Italy 
to become acquainted with Italian society opened 
his eyes to a condition of which he had not dreamed, 
and the church he found to be no better than the 
world; the lower clergy were ignorant and avari- 
cous, the higher clergy were ambitious, faithless and 
most corrupt. Zwinsrii was pierced with sharp con- 
victions of the pressing necessity of reform in the 
church. On his return home, he prayerfully sought to 
learn the will of the Lord as to the needful steps to be 
taken for the redemption of the church. For his part, 
he began to appl} 7 himself with renewed diligence to 



126 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

the study of the scriptures and of the early fathers, and 
the nearer he traced Christianity to its fountain- 
head, the life and teaching's of Christ, the simpler he 
found its doctrines and mode of worship. To suc- 
ceeding' ages he traced the accumulated multitude of 
observances, with which he found it encumbered. 
Through the scriptures light began to dawn on his 
soul, but he was so penetrated with the importance of 
the subject that he could not dare to take for granted 
any conclusion for which he could not find clear proof 
in scripture. He also took up the writings of Arnold, 
of Brescia, Wycliffe and other reformers. The writings 
of Wycliffe particularly attracted him and helped to 
mould his religious views, as they had done those of 
John Huss and Jerome of Prague. But the political 
factions encroached upon his time and interrupted 
his studies, and though his parishioners were warmly 
attached to him, they rendered his position among 
them undesirable by their constant political agitations. 

In the quiet abbey of Einsiedlen the monk, who had 
been Baron von Geroldseck, had risen to the first post 
in the abbey, and was known as the administrator. 
Pie was a man of ability and of superior learning, and 
he delighted to draw around him men of learning, 
zealous for the truth, to assist him in his efforts to 
elevate the character of the priesthood. Zwingli's 
reputation as an able preacher and a man of spotless 
integrity attracted him, and he offered the young 
pastor the position of chief preacher in the abbey. 
The offer came to Zwingli as a heaven-sent boon; the 
position would not only afford him ample leisure for 
study, but at Einsiedlen he would come into associa- 
tion with the leading scholars of the Cantons. 

Zwingli remained at Einsiedlen three years; they 
were to him valuable years, knowledge and strength- 
gaining years; positive convictions succeeded the 
doubts and fears which had disturbed him at Glaris. 
The administrator was his attached and admiring 



ULBICff ZWING LI. 1 2 ! 

friend, and, acting 1 under Zwingli's advice, he made 
many reforms demanded by the lessening* credulity of 
the people consequent upon the re-birth of learning*. 
Zwingli had also, at Einsiedlen, a few choice friends; 
together they studied the scriptures, the fathers, the 
schoolmen, and the works of Eeuchlinand of Erasmus; 
they discussed the new and bold ideas, found in these 
works, and subjected them to searching* examinations. 
Together they lamented the corrupt and superstitious 
practices so prevalent in the church and prevailing* to 
such an extent even there in the abbey, on the quiet 
mountain heig*ht of Einsiedlen. 

The influence of the Renaissance, which had so largely 
aroused to renewed activity the minds of persons who 
lived in or near the centres of culture, had scarcely 
been felt by the rural population of remote and moun- 
tainous districts. There at Einsiedlen, multitudes of 
men and women toiled up the rugged mountain paths, 
to prostrate themselves in the chapel of the wonder- 
working imag*e of Mary, and out of their offerings the 
salary of the preacher was paid. The enlightenment of 
this multitude of worshipers might leave .the preacher 
to starve. But such a possibility did not damp the 
ardor of Zwingli's religious zeal. To the multitude 
assembled in the chapel, he declared in words of elo- 
quent warning, that vain was their trust in the imag*e 
they adored; it could work no miracles, it could pardon 
no sins, it was powerless to grant salvation. "Your 
toilsome pilgrimages, your offerings, are all in vain," 
cried the preacher; "God is with you at your homes 
as really, as truly, as He is with you here in the chapel 
of Our Lady of Einsiedlen; pardon and salvation are 
only to be attained through living* faith in our Lord 
Jesus Christ." The number of pilgrimag-es so decid- 
edly decreased, that the pilgrim worshipers no longer 
came in multitudes. 

In his course of preaching, Zwingli continued with 
fearless and convincing eloquence to assail and expose 



128 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

the superstitious practices sanctioned by the church. 
Still he remained on friendly terms with the clerical 
dignitaries about him. These friendly relations may 
in part be attributable to the magnetic charm of his 
lovable nature and gentle manners, but they are chiefly 
due to the sagacity of the papal legates, who estimated 
correctly Zwing-ii's far-reaching influence with the 
people, and they determined by kind toleration toward 
him, and some outward reforms, to hold him constant 
to the church, and through his influence to bind the 
Swiss Cantons steadily to their papal alliance. The 
papal legate, Pucci, was particularly kind and cour- 
teous to Zwingli; he made no complaint of his sermons 
against penance, costly offerings, prayers to the virgin 
and to the saints, nor of his repeated assurances to his 
congregations that "when the heart is estranged from 
God, all these thing's avail them nothing." The legate 
assured him that the holy father felt deeply the neces- 
sity of reform, and promised on his return to Rome 
to present to his Holiness the correct condition of 
affairs in the church, and he felt confident that the 
holy father would not fail to institute such measures, 
as in the end would effect the much-needed reforms. 

The cardinal legate returned to Rome, but nothing 
grew out of his promises. Zwingli saw that it was a 
vain hope to look to the princes of the church for the 
inauguration of movements tending* to thorough re- 
form. He was more and more convinced that only the 
faithful preaching- of the Word of God could awaken 
the dormant spiritual life of the church. 

Among- the friends whom Zwingli made at Einsied- 
len was Myconius, professor of Greek in the school of 
Zurich. Zurich was one of the largest and most im- 
portant of the cities of Switzerland, and Myconius 
thought that the power and eloquence of Zwingli 
oug-ht to be exer-ted in a larger field than that of Ein- 
siedlen. On several occasions Myconius had induced 
Zwingli to visit Zurich, and on these occasions, his 
preaching had produced a deep impression. 



ULBICH ZWINGLL 129 

When the important post of cathedral preacher be- 
came vacant, Myconius proposed Zwingli, and he was 
duly elected, though not without opposition, and a 
notification of his election was sent him. Shortly 
thereafter, in December, 1518, Zwingli left Einsiedlen, 
deeply regretted by the Administrator, by his intimate 
friends, and by his parishioners generally. On his ar- 
rival in Zurich, he was received by the cathedral 
chapter with every mark of respect, though some of 
the Canons had opposed his election. At the first 
meeting of the chapter Zwingli declared to them his 
purpose to entirely consecrate himself and his min- 
istry to the service of God, that his main object 
should be "to instruct in the true faith the souls com- 
mitted to my care; to the glory of our God and 
Saviour." Such consecration was not in consonance 
with the views of the opposing canons ; they regarded 
the first duty of the cathedral preacher to be dili- 
gence in collecting the revenues of the cathedral. 

Zwingli began his ministerial labors by a course of 
sermons on the gospel according to St. Matthew. 
"Too long," said Zwingli, "have the life and teach- 
ings of our blessed Saviour been a dead letter to the 
people." The cathedral was crowded with eager lis- 
teners from all the grades of society, scholars, states- 
men, and humblest burghers. He expounded the 
gospel in his sermons, chapter by chapter, mostly in 
language plain and familiar, so that none could fail to 
understand, but at times rising to sublime heights 
of eloquence. From belief and faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ, he passed to the practices of life; 
and as at Glaris and Einsiedlen, he entered an earnest 
and fearless protest against mercenary military ser- 
vice, and against the acceptance of pensions from for- 
eign princes; "these pensions," said the preacher, "are 
the bane of our country; they bring into our Swiss 
Cantons, extravagance, intemperance, and lawless- 
ness." 



130 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

One of the opposing* canons tried to show him how 
unwise was such a mode of preaching*. 

" It will do more harm than good to follow up this 
new method," affirmed Canon Hoffman. " It is not a 
new method," answered Zwingli. "It is the old 
method, the method of the early fathers, and of 
St. Ohrysostom, and it is the method of St. Au- 
gustine." 

The Swiss reformation was now fairly started, and 
it moved steadily on, though 'under the pressure of 
many difficulties, the lamentations of some of Zwingli's 
colleagues, the reproaches of quondam friends, and 
the fury of the monks. Against the Franciscan monk, 
Sampson, the vender of indulgences, Zwingli declared 
from the cathedral pulpit, " no man, priest nor pope, 
has the power to forgive sin, only God can do that." 



THE SWISS REFORMATION. 131 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Swiss Reformation. 

In the year 1520, Pope Leo X. had declared forty- 
one of the propositions of Luther to be heretical, and 
in 1521 the diet of Worms declared that he should be 
treated as a heretic, and threatened severe penalties 
against those who might afford him aid or succor. 
Late in the year 1522, the bishop of Constance ap- 
pealed to the general Swiss diet to assist him in pre- 
serving* obedience in his diocese. The cantoD and 
city of Zurich were in his diocese, and Zwingli knew 
that this was specially leveled against him ; so early in 
the year 1523 he appeared before the great council of 
Zurich and petitioned the council to order a public 
conference of the clergy of Zurich and of the deputies 
of the bishop of Constance in order that he and his 
brother reformers might render an account of their 
doctrine. He promised on his own part and that of 
his brother reformers to retract whatever they had 
preached or written, which could be proven contrary 
to scripture. The council approved the proposition 
and addressed a circular letter to the clergy of the city 
and canton of Zurich, ordering them to appear at the 
town hall on the day next after the festival of Charle- 
magne; and they sent a letter to the bishop of Con- 
stance announcing the conference and begging that 
his deputies might be present on the occasion. 

Meanwhile Zwingli prepared and published seventy- 
six articles as the basis of discussion. His first article, 
without alluding to it, combated the generally re- 
ceived assertion of St. Augustine, "If the church had 
not approved the gospel, I should not believe it." 
Zwingli J s first article declared, "It is an error to assert 



132 THE JEW AXD THE GERMAN. 

that the gospel is nothing without the approbation of 
the church ; no other teachings, no matter from what 
source they come, are of equal force with the teachings 
of the gospel." The articles following were equally 
brief and forceful ; the last article declared, "The church 
has no right to molest any person on account of his 
opinions; it is the duty of the state to arrest all dis- 
turbers of the public peace." At the appointed time 
the conference assembled, the deputies of the bishop 
of Constance being present. Zwingli's articles w r ere 
presented and accepted as the subjects of discussion. 
In answer to the arguments of Zwingli, the deputies 
of the bishop of Constance desired to base their argu- 
ments on canon law, — the decrees of church councils; 
but Zwingli refused to admit as proof evidence drawn 
from canon law; he could accept no proof that w T as 
not contained in sacred scripture. 

The conference closed leaving the disputants in the 
same position toward each other as when it began, but 
the simple and clear setting forth of the reformed doc- 
trine produced a decided effect upon the people, and 
upon the members of the great council. 

After the adjournment of the conference the council 
held a deliberation and then formulated their final 
decision, the decree of the great council of the canton 
and city of Zurich, " Whereas, Ulrich ZwjngH and his 
brethren have not been confuted nor convicted of 
heresy, they shall continue to preach the gospel as 
they have heretofore done; and be it further ^ enacted 
that the pastors of the canton and city of Zurich shall 
draw their doctrines only from the sacred scriptures, 
and that they abstain from bitter controversies aud 
personal reflections." The Swiss reformation was no 
longer the innovations of a few pastors, it was in 
Zurich a national movement authorized by the highest 
secular authority. 

But being convinced that no human force can com- 
mand conviction, Zwingli would not use the power 



THE SWISS REFORMATION. 133 

with which he was invested to compel changes in the 
mode of worship. Many of the churches retained their 
pictures and images and continued to celebrate mass. 
But among the reformed were many who lacked the 
w T ise moderation of Zwingli; impetuous and vehement, 
they declaimed against what they called idolatry, and 
wrought up some of the weaker sort to such a pitch of 
excitement that they wanted to pull down every pic- 
ture and dash down every image. But Zwingli's mod- 
eration prevailed, and he calmed the excitement of the 
people, though it still burned in the bosoms of a few 
men, who pulled down a crucifix at the gate of the city. 
At this act the opponents raised a hue and cry against 
the perpetrators, they were arrested, and there arose a 
clamor for their death as guilty of sacrilege ; Zwingli 
defended them against the charge of sacrilege, but 
considered them as deserving of punishment for tak- 
ing authority in their own hands and acting without 
the sanction of the government. The chief instigator 
w r as banished for two years and the others were im- 
prisoned for three months. In the autumn of the 
same year, 1523, the great council ordered another 
conference, that by means of the discussion the council 
might be able to decide whether the worship of images 
was authorized by the scriptures, and whether accord- 
ing to the scriptures the mass should be observed or 
abolished. Invitations to be present at the confer- 
ence were sent by the council to the bishops of Con- 
stance, Coire and Basle, and all the Swiss cantons 
were requested by the great council of Zurich to send 
deputies to the important conference to be held in the 
city of Zurich. The bishops declined the invitations, 
but the bishop of Constauce sent to the conference a 
written defence of the mass and of the use of images. 
"The mass," contended the bishop, "is a necessary 
consecration and oblation, without which the Eucharist 
is not truly celebrated. Images are not idols of false 
gods, they are the likenesses of saints whose lives 
9 



134 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

were a blessing 1 to the world, and who have been re- 
ceived into heaven, and the homage paid to them 
serves to nourish piety." As the bishop of Constance 
had cited no scriptural proofs, nor advanced any new 
arguments from the earl} 7 - fathers, the council decided 
that his paper afforded no ground for discussion. Of 
the cantons but few responded to the invitations sent. 

The conference, numbering over nine hundred men, 
prelates, theologians, clergy and laity, assembled on 
the appointed day, October 28th; two deputies from 
St. Gaul and one from Schaffhausen were chosen to 
preside over the deliberations of the conference. The 
paper from the bishop of Constance was submitted, 
but as it contained no proofs from scripture it was 
laid on the table. Zwingli and his fellow-student at 
Einsiedlen, Leo Jude, were appointed to answer those 
who defended the mass as a sacrifice, and the worship 
of images. The prior of the Augustines, a famous 
preacher, and warmly attached to what he termed 
ancient orthodoxy, first took up the line of defence, 
and eloquently and logically argued from canon lav/; 
but Zwingli and Jude refused to accept any proof not 
drawn from scripture. The subjects under discussion 
were argued for and against for three days; during the 
discussion the Augustine prior confessed that he 
could not refute the theses of Zwingli unless he were 
always allowed to have resource to canon law. 

In conclusion Zwingli insisted that " the magnificence 
of churches and the rich vestments of the higher 
clergy strike the senses and heighten the pomp of 
worship, but do not lead the mind to serious medita- 
tion nor to communion of soul with Him whose in- 
visible glory should fill the temples dedicated to his 
worship." 

The discussion made a deep impression on the 
minds of the hearers; there could be no question of 
the victory of the two reformers, Zwingli and Jude. 

The council dismissed the conference with thanks 



THE SWISS REFORMATION. 135 

for the readiness with which their summons had been 
obeyed, but they reserved their final decision until 
they had calmly deliberated upon the matter under 
consideration. 

Zwingli continued to labor by writing* and by preach- 
ing- to procure the abolition of the mass and the ban- 
ishment of images from the churches. He wrote and 
preached that " the doctrine of the invocation of the 
saints is a dangerous instrument in the hands of un- 
learned and unscrupulous priests, and that the false 
ideas of ihe people could only be overcome by the re- 
moval of the objects of their superstition." After duly 
considering* the matter the great council determined 
to undertake the reformation of worship, and in the 
beginning of the following year, 1524, they began by 
granting- to individuals the right to remove from the 
churches any pictures or statues which had been pre- 
sented by their ancestors or by themselves. At the 
expiration of the time granted for such removals the 
council appointed two magistrates, whose duty it 
should be to visit all the churches and have every re- 
maining picture and statue removed. Among those 
who grieved at what they regarded as the desecration 
of the churches were a few who were measurably 
happy in the belief that the sacred images would of 
themselves return to the churches and resume their 
places. But " hope deferred maketh the heart sick," 
and after expectant and continually disappointed 
waiting, these people gave up their belief in the 
images. The example of the capital w r as not only fol- 
lowed in the canton of Zurich, but several other can- 
tons enlisted under the banner of reform ; but in yet 
other cantons, especially the five forest cantons, much 
indignation was manifested, stirred up by the monks; 
the people of Zurich were denounced as insulters of 
the saints. But undaunted, the city and canton of 
Zurich held on their way. The great council pro- 
ceeded to suppress the mendicant orders on account 



136 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

of the indolent lives and pernicious example of the 
monks. The council declared that young- and robust 
monks should learn trades and become useful citizens 
of the state, that those who were given to studious 
life should be furnished with the means to prosecute 
their studies, and those who were aged and those 
who were infirm should for their support be granted 
annuities and a home should be provided for them in 
the Franciscan convent. The convent of the Domini- 
cans, by order of the council, was made a hospital and 
its large revenues devoted to the maintenance of the 
sick poor of both the city and canton of Zurich. The 
convent of the Augustines was turned into a public 
school. 

These arrangements were wise and disinterested; 
they do credit to the Council of Zurich and to Ulrich 
Zwingli, their chief adviser. The mass was abolished, 
and, soon after, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
was celebrated in accordance with the simple mode 
of apostolic days ; the bread and the wine were 
administered to all communicants. Zwingli taught 
that the bread and the wine in the sacred supper were 
symbolical, even as water is in baptism. He rejected 
both the doctrine of tran substantiation and of con- 
substantiation, or real presence. "The supper of our 
Lord," said Zwingli, " is a sacrament of commemora- 
tion, and signifies the spiritual communion between 
Christ and the communicant; and is the most hallowed 
of the Christian sacraments." 

Previous to the anabaptist outburst of fanatical en- 
thusiasm Luther had declared, c 'It is not the sacra- 
ment of our Lord's supper which sanctifies, it is faith 
in the sacrament." But the extravagancies of those 
unreasoning enthusiasts produced a modification in 
his views; he rejected papal transubstantiation, but he 
insisted on the real presence of Christ in the bread 
and the wine; some writers term this doctrine consub- 
stantiation. This difference of belief between Luther 



THE SWISS REFORMATION. 137 

and Zwingli, who personally were entire strangers the 
one to the other, inaugurated a long w r ar of pamphlets 
between their followers which generated much bitter- 
ness of spirit. This deplorable division among Pro- 
testants induced that ardent protestant Philip, Land- 
grave of Hesse, to endeavor to bring about a union 
of all Protestants. To effect this great end he, in the 
autumn of 1529, invited Luther and Zwingli and the 
distinguished theologians of both sides to meet m 
conference at his castle of Marburg. Philip desired 
not only to heal the doctrinal divisions which kept the 
Protestant communities at variance, but also to form 
an armed coalition of all Protestant States against the 
papal forces. But, alas for his well-rneant efforts ! he 
could accomplish neither. 

For the entertainment of the distinguished guests 
from whose conference he anticipated such important 
results he made royal preparations. " 

In the Marburg conference Luther showed the ob- 
stinate side of his great character; on the second day 
of the conference, the day when the disputants first 
met for general discussion, Luther said, "I protest 
that I differ from the Swiss in regard to the doctrine 
of our Lord's Supper, and that I shall always differ 
from them." Later in the discussion he avowed that 
he rejected reason, common sense and mathematical 
proof. The landgrave soon perceived that the union 
among Protestants he so ardently desired was a lost 
causo. The Saxon doctors refused to acknowledge the 
Swiss doctors as brethren; they would only acknowl- 
edge them as friends. To which the Swiss doctors re- 
plied, "We are conscious of having acted as in the 
presence of God. Posterity will be our witness. 
Let us on each side defend our belief without railing, 
and let us carefully avoid all harsh and violent words 
in writing and speaking." 

When the parting hour came Luther approached 
Zwingli and the other Swiss doctors, saying, " I offer 



138 THE JEW AND IRE GERMAN. 

you the hand of peace and charity." The hand of 
peace and charity was eagerly grasped by the Swiss 
divines, though they would not abate one jot of what 
they held as sacred truth. 



UNION OF REFORMED CANTONS. 139 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Union of Befokmed Cantons. 

The union of the reformed cantons, Zurich, Berne, 
Basle, St. Gaul, Schaffhausen and Appenzel, isolated 
them from the papal cantons, particularly from the five 
forest cantons. These cantons formed an alliance 
with King* Ferdinand, and they banded themselves in 
a treaty to spare no efforts to suppress the reforms, or 
as they expressed it, the innovations of the heretical 
cantons within their borders. 

In the terrible civil war which followed Zwingli 
went with the forces of Zurich as their chaplain ; the 
people were unwilling* to let him go. " Stay with us," 
urged the burgomaster, " we have need of you, the 
council needs you." "Not so," answered Zwingli, "I 
cannot remain quietly at home by my fireside while 
my brethren expose their lives. I must go with the 
army." 

On the field of battle, while stooping to speak a few 
last words of prayer in the ear of a dying man, a stone 
hurled at him struck him on the head; other stones 
thrown in quick succession laid him prostrate; an 
ignoble foeman seeing him fall, thrust him through 
with his lance just as Zwingli was speaking his last 
words, "They can kill the body, they cannot kill the 
soul." With these words still hovering about his lips 
his soul passed from earth to heaven to meet his Lord 
and Saviour, whom he had so faithfully served upon 
earth. 

The news of his death filled all Zurich with grief, 
and all the reformed cantons bewailed with Zurich the 
death of the great reformer. The untimely death of 
Ulrich Zwingli in the active prime of his life was an 
irreparable loss to the Swiss reformation. 



140 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

As leader in the Swiss reformation, Zwingli was 
succeeded by John Calvin. The two men were of 
most unlike natures. Zwingli was warm-hearted, gen- 
erous and forgiving; Calvin was cold, stern and re- 
lentless. Zwingli was not irritated by contradiction; 
Calvin was intolerant of contradiction. Zwingli held 
that conformity to the clear and precise teachings of 
the gospel should be required of Christians, on all 
other points individuals ought to think for them- 
selves; Calvin held to the absolute sovereignty of 
logically deduced dogma. Zwingli's preaching was 
eloquent, persuasive, forceful, often vehement; Calvin's 
preaching was philosophical and exegetical. 

Zwingli's last work was an abstract of Ms doctrine, 

addressed to the king of France. Francis I. The work 

was written but a few weeks before his lamented and 

untimely death. In that work the reader cannot fail 

to perceive a loving breadth of spirit and a mind 

rising above the narrowing influence of prejudice. 

The spirit which breathes through Zwingli's works 

leads Faith to look upward, and, with ear attent, to 

hear Zwingli singing with Faber: 

"There's a wideness in God's mercy, 

Like the wideness of the sea ; 

There's a kindness in His justice 

Which is more than liberty." 

Calvin was but eight years old when Luther posted 
up in Wittenberg his immortal theses, the first decisive 
step in the great German reformation. Calvin's father 
was a native of northern France, a grave, stern man ; 
he was apostolic notary, and secretary to his bishop. 
It has been said, "The gravity of his father and the 
piety of his mother formed the basis of his stern and 
religious nature." As a young man, Calvin was won 
to the reformed doctrines while a student at Bourges. 
The professor of. Greek at Bourges had seen and 
heard Luther, and he had studied the Greek Testament 
of Erasmus. The expositions given by that Greek 
professor, Melchior Wolmar, of the scriptures were to 



UX10X OF REFORMED CANTONS. 141 

the young student an astounding- revelation, and 
became the absorbing interest of his life. Speaking 
of himself at that time, he says, "I was so obstinately 
addicted to papal superstitions, it was hard to draw 
myself out of that slough." In 1529, we find him in 
Paris, a preacher of the reformed doctrine and pastor 
of a small church. One of the early seals to his min- 
istry was the rector of the University of Paris, Nicholas 
Cop. On the following Martinmas, according to cus- 
tom, the rector was to deliver the annual address. He 
asked Calvin to write it for him, and according to Beza, 
Calvin framed for him an address very different from 
what was customary, so different that it stirred up a 
commotion in the Sorbonne, and the parliament of 
France took up the matter and ordered the arrest of 
the rector, who, having timely warning, escaped and 
fled to Basle, in Switzerland. By some means the 
authorities learned that the offending address had 
been prepared by Calvin, and his arrest was ordered. 
He, too, escaped, and after a brief sojourn at places of 
safety in France and in Italy he went to Switzerland 
and settled at Basle. In this city his far-reaching 
work as a reformer was begun. 

Luther and Zwingli took the Bible as their guide- 
book of faith and of conduct, their guide-book to 
heaven, and as its light shone upon them, warming 
their hearts and illuminating their minds, they 
preached and they wrote of the life-giving truths they 
had learned. But this was not Calvin's method, he 
preached the great doctrines of the reformation, but he 
was not ready to write until he could find in the scrip- 
tures a system of doctrine which to his mind would 
be logically satisfactory, and with that great logical 
hammer he desired at one giant blow to overthrow 
and destroy the whole superstructure of Borne. To 
this end, he wrote his "Institutes of the Christian 
Religion." The work was first published at Basle, 
1536. But for twentv vears thereafter he continued 



142 THE JEW AND THE GEB31AN. 

to labor on this, his greatest work, at Basle, at Stras- 
burg and at Geneva. Not until 1559 was the last and 
completed edition of the great work published. It 
consists of four books. The first book treats of God 
in His work of creation ; the second book, of Jesus 
Christ and His work of redemption; the third, of the 
Holy Spirit and His work of regeneration; the fourth, 
of the Church as the depository of the means of grace 
and salvation. 

In treating of redemption, Calvin brings in his doc- 
trine of predestination, which falls like a pall upon his 
theology. Calvin says, "God, in the fullness of His 
sovereignty, by His eternal and immuiable counsel, 
has decreed one portion of the human family to salva- 
tion, and the other to damnation." "The elect have 
to bless and praise Him forever, and the reprobate 
have no right to complain ; God was under no obliga- 
tion to the elect nor to the reprobate." The election 
of grace had early been taught in the church, but 
Calvin states, that "to admit the election of grace and 
reject the election of reprobation is stupid folly." 
Calvin took for the basis of his terrible doctrine, a 
hard lifeless logic, a necessity of his system of estab- 
lishing the absolute sovereignty of God. 

No system of logical induction, however closely 
knit, can elucidate the plan and purposes of infinite 
wisdom. The logic, by which Calvin has attempted 
to trace and define the "infinite plan," is as hard and 
dead as an Egyptian mummy. But the responsibility 
of the dread doctrine of predestination should not be 
thrown wholly on Calvin. St. Augustine, in a milder 
manner, but just as surely, states the same doctrine. 

From Basle, Calvin was called in 1536 to Geneva, as 
pastor of a church and professor of divinity ; this was 
shortly after the first issue of his Institutes. His 
ministrations in Geneva were faithful and courageous, 
but severely strict, his inflexible strictness irritated 
the majority of the people against him, and in two 



UNION OF REFORMED CANTONS. 143 

years time they succeeded in having sentence of ban- 
ishment pronounced against him and his friend and 
fellow pastor, Farel. Calvin again sought refuge at 
Basle and Farel went with him. From Basle, Calvin 
was called to Strasburg as preacher and professor of 
theology. His lectures soon attracted a great number 
of students, and he was held in such high esteem, that 
he was presented with the freedom of the city; still 
toward Geneva he turned his longing eyes, and wrote 
many letters to his friends there. 

From Strasburg he sent his famous answer to the 
cooing-dove notes of Sadolet, secretary of Pope Leo 
X., with which he sought to draw Geneva back into the 
arms of the church, promising that the church would 
receive her as a compassionate mother receives a wan- 
dering daughter. Calvin's answer was most oppor- 
tune, for Geneva had no pastor competent to answer 
Sadolet, who was "gifted with marvelous power and 
grace." 

Calvin's answer was published and had a wide cir- 
culation ; Luther was pleased, he said it was an answer 
which had both hands and feet. 

The confusion bordering on anarchy that prevailed 
in Geneva, together with Calvin's powerful paper, in- 
duced the council to send a deputation to him, beg- 
ging in the name of the council that he would return 
to Geneva, in order that the honor and glory of God 
might be promoted. 

Calvin asked of the deputation, how the men who 
had banished him because of the strictness of his re- 
ligious rule, could expect in the future to accommo- 
date themselves to him, for he would not relax an iota 
of the strictness of his requirements. In reply, the 
council sent another deputation, offering such press- 
ing and honorable terms, that Calvin promised to con- 
sider the matter. He was in no hurry to return, the 
council had not revoked the sentence of banishment 
against him, but in the following spring, 1541, the 



144 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

council solemnly revoked the sentence of banishment 
against Calvin, which they had pronounced three years 
before. 

In August Calvin returned to Geneva, and for the 
remainder of his life the history of Geneva and the 
history of Calvin are linked into one. "Henceforth 
Calvin belonged to Geneva, and Geneva to Calvin." 



JOHN CALVIN, 145 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

John Calvin. 

The incoming- New Year found Calvin's govern- 
mental arrangements, civil and ecclesiastical, all com- 
pleted. The great and lesser councils, as heretofore, 
were the supreme civil tribunals; to these he added 
the consistory, the supreme spiritual tribunal. The 
consistory was composed of the city pastors and 
twelve laymen, recommended by the pastors and ap- 
pointed by the councils. All matters pertaining to 
the church and the clergy, were to be considered and 
settled by this tribunal. 

"The sign of the cross,'' said Calvin, "has been so 
grossly abused that it but serves to veil the absence 
of that which it signifies." He would not, therefore, 
allow the cross to be placed on the churches, but over 
the church doors he had inscribed the sacred letters, 
IHS, and he petitioned the council to pass the 
decree that the monogram of Christ should be in- 
scribed on the public buildings, on the standards and 
on the coins of the city. Into church worship, Calvin 
introduced the "service of song," psalms in metre, 
printed with simple musical notation for congrega- 
tional singing. 

For many years the theocratic government estab- 
lished by Calvin moved on peacefully; there were 
occasional murmurs against his strictness of religious 
requirements, but there was no case of special severity 
and no open antagonism. The city was prosperous 
at home and respected abroad. It was the opinion of 
Michelet that "Geneva endured by her moral strength; 
she had no territory, no army, nothing for space, 
time or matter ; she was the city of the mind, built of 



146 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

Stoicism on the rock of Predestination. " But as time 
wore on the struggle began, the tendency to social 
amusements, so long repressed, at last burst forth. 
Contrary to the ordinances Mrs. Perrin, wife of Amied 
Perrin, a man of high repute, gave a ball — had in her 
house music and dancing. She was indicted to appear 
before the consistory. She obeyed the indictment, 
but would not profess sorrow for what she had done 
nor would she promise not to do the like again ; on 
the contrary, she was indignant against the consistory 
and gave them a piece of her mind on their usurpa- 
tions. The consistory passed sentence of imprison- 
ment on her and she was conveyed to prison. Her 
husband, who had been a friend of Calvin's, had left 
the city that he might not be compelled to witness 
against her. Calvin wrote to him, urging him to 
return and submit himself to the consistory. He 
returned — and was imprisoned. The imprisonment of 
Mr. and Mrs. Perrin is stated by some authorities to 
have been of several months' duration; by others, 
that it was a brief imprisonment of a few days. It 
was the beginning of serious troubles. A party was 
formed in Geneva, known as the Liberals; this party 
was hostile to Calvin, and between his party and the 
Liberals tumults and fights frequently occurred. 
Calvin, was sorely disturbed but he was inflexible, 
though menaces were uttered against ail the pastors, 
and particularly against him. In this state of affairs, 
a crowd of angry, threatening men gathered in the 
hall of the Hotel de Ville to decide what steps they 
should take against their oppressors. Calvin was in- 
formed of the gathering by his alarmed brethren; he 
went straightway to the hotel and walked into their 
midst cool and impassive. " Citizens of Geneva," he 
said, "I know that I am the primary cause of all this 
confusion. If you will have blood, shed mine; if you 
wish me to be exiled, I will exile myself, and if 3^011 
wish to try once more to save Geneva without the 



JOHN CALVIN. 147 

gospel, when I have exiled myself, you can try it." 
This bold attitude surprised and awed those who saw 
and heard him and produced a calm which seemed 
rapidly to spread over the city, but it was only on the 
surface; soon other conflicts arose between the two 
parties, and every conflict fanned the flame of discord. 
Many of Calvin's friends went over to the Liberals and 
at one time he thought that sentence of banishment 
would again be passed against him, but his influence 
proved to be the dominating power in Geneva. 

In the year 1554 — added to the civil and religious 
disturbances in the city — Geneva became the scene of 
the distressing imprisonment, unfair trial and cruel 
execution of Michael Servetus. Michael Servetus was 
born in Spain in 1509, and while yet a youth he was 
so much attracted by the reformed doctrine that his 
father sent him from Spain to France, fearing that 
the suspicion of the inquisitors might fall on the 
family. In France, where notwithstanding persecu- 
tion the reformation had gained a firm foothold, 
Servetus allied himself with the movement. He is 
described as generous and courageous, as gifted and 
daring. Seeking knowledge from every available 
source, he studied medicine, law and divinity. "He 
toiled laboriously, and like a true son of the sixteenth 
century, he pried into everything." Servetus was 
haunted by the idea that "the reformers had stopped 
too soon, that Christianity, in order to become true 
again, needed a restoration deeper and far more com- 
plete." In order to give a clear exposition of his 
views, he wrote and published a work, for which he 
was apprehended and imprisoned in Vienne, but he 
managed to escape and fled to Geneva. On being 
informed of his presence in the city, Calvin demanded 
his arrest, which was ordered by the majority of the 
council. Into the audience chamber of the criminal 
court, situated in the prison, Servetus was conducted 
to answer to the charges contained in the articles, 



148 THE JEW AND THE GER31AN. 

which had been drawn up by Calvin. The chief 
charges were pantheism and denial of the Trinity. 
Servetus asked for a public disputation with Calvin 
on the articles brought against him. His request was 
refused. On the following day Calvin was present 
and took part in the examination, which at times took 
the form of a disputation between the accused and 
the accuser. There was a proposition offered in the 
court to send to Vienne for a copy of the proceedings 
against Servetus in that court. Calvin objected to 
the proposition. He thought such a step might in- 
duce Berne and Basle to make an effort to save 
Servetus, as they had counseled clemency to Bolsec 
when he was under trial for holding opinions on some 
points, especially on predestination, opposed to the 
Genevan theology. Servetus had some few friends in 
the council — Amied Perrin was then a member of the 
council — but they formed so small a minority their 
voice had no controlling influence in the council. 

The council and the consistory decreed death to the 
heretic. The day of his execution was set on the 27th 
of October, 1554, but for three months longer he was 
immured in a miserable dungeon. Servetus was under 
the impression that he was to die by the sword, but 
on his death-day when brought out from his loathsome 
dungeon and informed that he was to die by being 
burned at the stake, he threw himself prostrate before 
his judges, beseeching them to permit him to die by 
the sword, but his horror-struck supplication availed 
not with his judges. But they offered him life and 
liberty if he would retract his heresies, but his terror 
of the stake could not make him hesitate between 
truth and falsehood as he conceived them. 

Calvin had withdrawn himself from the heretic; he 
had no word of kindness for his brother man in that 
man's hour of dire extremity. 

The stake of Servetus excites the greater horror, 
the in tenser shock ? because it was planted by reformers 



JOHN CALVIN. 149 

in a reformed city. The burning at the stake of a man 
on account of his religious belief, no matter how clog- 
ged with error, by a consistory of reformed divines, 
and a council of reformed laymen, having in their 
hands the open gospel of him who said, "Blessed are 
the merciful," is more reprehensible, more criminal, 
than the burnings of unreformed Eome. 

As prime mover in the death of Servetus, the lurid 
glare from that fatal pile will ever cast its shadow on 
the fair fame of Calvin. But all the blame cannot 
justly be thrown on him ; before the sentence of death 
was passed the leading churches of Switzerland and of 
Germany were consulted, from not one of them came 
the voice of protest. Luther was no longer at the 
side of Melanchthon and he had not the courage to 
take his stand against the churches and say in the 
words of his Master, "Nay, let the wheat and the 
tares grow together until the harvest." 

During the next year, the disturbances reached a 
crisis, the contending parties took up arms, and the 
Liberals, being the weaker party, were overcome ; some 
of the prisoners escaped, others were executed, and 
all of that party were banished from the city. 

The health of Calvin, never strong, began to give 
way some few years after the expulsion of the Lib- 
erals, and from the New Year of 1564, he was not 
again able to leave his house; near Whitsuntide of that 
year he closed his eyes in death. His remains were 
followed to the grave by a long procession of all the 
pastors of reformed Switzerland, and many from Ger- 
many and from France ; the citizens of Geneva and 
many strangers were in the sad procession. A con- 
temporary writes, "The church of Geneva bewailed 
the loss of her guide, and the state mourned for her 
chief citizen, her main protector after God." 

As professor, as pastor and preacher, as writer and 
public adviser, Calvin was untiring. Besides his 
chief work, "Christian Institutes," and his commen- 
10 



150 THE JEW AND TEE GERMAN. 

taries on the Bible, his other works theological and 
polemical form quite a library. As a reformer he was 
earnest and courageous, and his example has been an 
inspiration to thousands. 



REFORM 310 VEMENT IN FRANCE. 151 



CHAPTEK XXV. 

Beform Movement in France. 

The reform movement in France did not, at first, 
concern itself with doctrinal issues, it mainly strove 
to correct moral abuses and insist upon deeper spirit- 
uality, and this was done in isolated congregations, 
without any concerted action. Calvin, as a French- 
man and as a reformer, whose first pastorate had been 
in Paris, would naturally feel a deep interest in the 
cause of reform in France, and he did keep a watchful 
eye on the reform movement in that country. 

Although the reform movement was so unaggressive, 
the reformers did not escape envious calumny. As a 
refutation of the charges laid against them, Calvin drew 
up and caused to be presented to the King of France, 
Henry II., "A Confession of Faith," in the name of 
the protestants of France, in order that the king 
might be truly informed of the faith of the abused 
people and therein see how false w T ere the charges 
that had been spread against them. At the same 
time he urged upon the scattered congregations to 
unite in a regularly organized body. Calvin's opinion 
found favor with the reformed congregations and they 
resolved to send delegates to meet at the church in 
Paris and affect the desired organization. 

The assembly met in the spring of 1559 in the 
small church of which Calvin had been pastor. It 
was a small gathering, not numberiug fifty members, 
but it laid the foundation of the protestant church of 
France; it was entitled "The First National Synod of 
the Protestants of France " Being duly convened, 
the synod proceeded to draw up "A Confession of 
Faith.' 5 This work was readily accomplished because 



152 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

the protestants of France were of one mind in accept- 
ance of Calvin's theology. The next work was to pre- 
pare a system of discipline, which should be also a 
constitution and of sufficient scope to become the 
basis of the additions which the future development 
of the church might demand. According* to the defi- 
nition of that synod, "The church, in the apostolic 
sense, is a body of believers assembled in one place 
for divine worship." And the synod enjoined upon 
every such church that, as soon as they could possibly 
do so, they should form themselves into a regularly 
organized body by appointing a consistory, by calling 
a pastor and by having regular preaching, and there- 
after to bring together the several local churches into 
a general church ; all the local churches in the same 
section of the country should send delegates — the 
pastor and one of the elders — to meet in conference 
semi-annually at some duly appointed place in order 
to consider the interests of the churches and to advise 
thereupon. As many of these conferences as could 
conveniently meet together annually should form a pro- 
vincial synod to consider and control church affairs in 
the represented province; an important duty of this 
body was to appoint the pastors, subject to ratification 
by the churches. The supreme body of the church, 
the national synod, should consist of two pastors and 
two elders from each provincial synod. All questions 
of doctrines and general polity were to be submitted 
to this supreme body, and from its decisions no ap- 
peal could be taken. 

The work of the "First National Synod," was unani- 
mously approved by the churches. This well-arranged 
organization gave to the protestants of France, unity 
and strength. The subsequent rapid growth of pro- 
testantism is surprising; instead of a few hundreds, 
the protestant church of France increased to thousands 
and tens of thouaands; she gathered in her member- 
ship from all ranks of. society, from the humblest to 



REFORM MOVEMENT IN FRANCE. 153 

the highest. Among- her communicants were the 
Prince oi ! Concle and Admiral Coligny, the Duchess 
of Ferrara and the Queen of Navarre. 

In less than three years the Reformed church be- 
came so numerous and powerful that King Henry 
deemed it expedient to convoke the famous conference 
of Poissy, hoping that through the influence of the 
conference he might establish harmonious relations 
between the church of Rome and the Reformed 
church. In the conference both churches were repre- 
sented by able men; Geneva had sent Theodore Beza. 
After his first speech, the Cardinal of Lorraine — 
brother of the Duke of Guise — declared that he wished 
the man had been dumb or that his hearers had been 
deaf. The representatives of Rome at Poissy affected 
to regard the Reformed church as a criminal ; some of 
the prelates declared they were only there as her 
judges. 

The conference of Poissy only disclosed more fully 
the then unbridgeable chasm between the two churches. 
The conference closed without an approach to the 
object the king had in view, but it was fruitful in 
good to the Reformed church. The masterly setting 
forth of the scriptural purity of the reformed doctrines 
and the primitive simplicity of worship had great in- 
fluence upon large numbers of the people. Hundreds 
of parishes put down the mass, and numbers of priests 
became protestant pastors. 

After the death of the king — under the regency of 
the Duke of Guise — the queen mother requested 
Admiral Coligny to give her a list of the Protestant 
churches already organized. The admiral found two 
thousand one hundred and fifty. The queen mother 
was restive under the power of the Guises, who under 
the pretence of extreme courtesy kept her in the back- 
ground of political affairs, which was not at all to her 
liking. This state of affairs induced her to write to 
the Prince of Conde of a partially formed purpose of 



154 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

placing herself, the young king and kingdom under 
the protection of the protestants. She was weary of 
the Guises, and they were the head of the Romish 
church in France. 

The cardinal was a much abler man than his brother, 
the duke. This was so well known in Paris that it 
was a common saying" that the regent was the arm by 
which the cardinal worked the wires of state. 

The young king, as dauphin, had been betrothed to 
Mary of Scots, who was then a child of five years old. 
Her uncles, the Guises, by their shrewd diplomacy, 
had succeeded in having the child-queen sent to 
France to be brought up and educated under their 
direction. 

Before the ratification of the marriage, the duke and 
cardinal entered into a secret treaty with their niece 
by which the young queen bound herself to do all that 
in her power lay to bring her kingdom back into the 
church of Rome. 

The young king, Francis II., had granted to the 
protestants the protection of a royal edict, known as 
the edict of January, but Francis was a weak man, 
physically and mentally. He passionately admired 
his beautiful wife and was ruled by her will, and she 
was controlled by the Guises, who continued to guide 
the helm of the ship of state as they had done when 
the king was a child. And under their continued rule 
the condition of the country seemed calm and pros- 
perous. The protestants, with a sense of safety under 
the royal edict, were laboring for the promulgation of 
the gospel and for the good of the country, when sud- 
denly, without premonition, the dark cloud of war was 
seen lowering in the near distance. The Guises, 
thirsting for protestant blood, had been plotting with 
foreign powers to invade France and help them to ex- 
terminate the heretics. 

The armies of Spain and of Savoy marched into 
France and menaced the Prince of Conde in Orleans. 
In this exigency he appealed to protestant Germany 



REFORM MOVEMENT IX FRANCE. 155 

and to protestant Switzerland for aid, and eagerly 
those protestant countries responded to his call, but 
the forces of the prince were far outnumbered by thoso 
of the enemy. In the battle of Dreux the protestants 
were defeated and the gallant Prince of Conde was 
taken prisoner. 

All protestant France was sorely cast down ; in this 
trying time Calvin wrote to the stricken church, 
"Since the poor flock of the Son of God has been 
scattered by the wolves, cling closer to Him and pray 
God to take pity on you, and stretch out His hand to 
shut their bloody mouths or turn them into lambs/' 

Though cast down and afflicted, the protestant 
church of France was still sufficiently powerful to 
command recognition as a church, co-existent with 
the church of Kome. It is said the king felt keenly 
the shame of his edict having been set aside as a nul- 
lity. In the spring of the next year, 1564, he issued 
another edict known as the edict of Amboise, which 
was thankfully received by the oppressed protestants, 
though it was less favorable than the edict of Janu- 
ary. Notwithstanding the king's edict, the protes- 
tant church was the object of continuous envy and 
persecution all through the eight years that led to the 
fatal day of St. Bartholomew r . On that day of horror, 
the noble Coligny perished. That massacre of inno- 
cent and unsuspecting people was planned and guided 
by the Guises. 

Henceforth the history of the protestant church of 
France is one of perils and persecutions until Henry 
of Navarre was crowned Henry IV. of France. He 
issued the edict of Nantes, which secured to the op- 
pressed and persecuted church, both political and re- 
ligious liberty, and again she became a flourishing and 
powerful body. But, alas ! her prosperity w T as short- 
lived. Monarchical despotism culminated under Louis 
XIV.; in 1685 he revoked the edict of Nantes; that 
revocation was the death blow of the protestant 
church of France. 



156 THE JEW AND THE GEE 31 AN. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

English Reformation. 

The reformation in England did not grow out of 
the rupture between Henry VIII. and the pope; the 
only effect that rupture had upon the English refor- 
mation was to throw the royal authority on the side 
of the reform movement. The temporal authority in 
Saxony and in the Swiss reformed cantons from the 
first w T as on the side of reform and from nobler motives 
than actuated Henry VIII. of England. 

The germ of the English reformation must be sought 
far back in the teachings of Robert Greathead and of 
his spiritual son, John Wycliffe, and in the teachings 
of many others, their successors. 

By some authorities it is claimed that the first im- 
pulse toward the great reformation of the sixteenth 
century in England was given by Cardinal Wolsey. 
He certainly gave a renewed impetus to the study of 
Greek, and he enlarged the university libraries, and 
demanded a better educated clergy ; and further, he 
suppressed the smaller monasteries by placing the 
inmates of several in one monastery to be supported 
by its revenues. Of the vacated monasteries, some 
were converted into bishoprics and others into col- 
leges. And it is claimed that by original documents, 
it can be proven that he handled the large revenues 
thus freed from monastic control with clean hands, 
appropriating them to schools, colleges and other 
public needs. The degradation of Cardinal Wolsey 
from power, it is claimed, was not so much owing to 
the cupidity of the king as to his desire to crush so 
powerful an opponent of his will in the divorce from 
Queen Catharine. Shakespeare makes Wolsey say : 



ENGLISH REFORMATION. 157 

"I have touched the highest point of all ray greatness, 
And from that full meridian of my glory, 
i haste now to my setting." 

That hasted setting* leaves in darkness whatever of 
civil and religious reform might have been gained 
under Cardinal Wolsey. But it is clear as noonday 
that the desire for civil and religious reform was not 
the moving* principle with Wolsey's king 1 ; he was 
actuated by a two-fold motive, resentment against the 
pope and acquisition of wealth and power. His sup- 
pression of the monasteries was not for the sake of 
religious reform nor for the public weal, but to destroy 
an adverse power ; a power behind the throne devoted 
to Rome and by all possible means working against 
him as supreme head of the English church. And, 
moreover, the confiscation of their immense riches 
would be a fountain of wealth to his attenuated treas- 
ury. But without cloaking- his purpose under the 
pretense of religious reform and the public weal, he 
could not, in freedom-loving England, have accom- 
plished a dissolution of the monasteries by the sole 
exercise of his royal power. 

For more than a century there had been a growing" 
sentiment among the secular clergy and among the 
people, that the monastic system, decrepit with age 
and bloated with wealth, was a plague-spot on the 
realm ; it was this growing public sentiment that in- 
fluenced the action of Cardinal Wolsey. 

The dissolution of the monasteries was unquestion- 
ably both a civil and a religious blessing. The use- 
less lives and the general wickedness of the monks 
made them an offence to the moral sense of the better 
class of the people, and a stumbling block in the path 
of religious reform. At the same time there were 
many individual exceptions, noble men, of holy and 
useful lives; and in many instances the course pur- 
sued by the king and his minister, Cromwell, was alto- 
gether reprehensible. They cannot be exonerated 
from the charges of rapacity and cruelty upon testi- 



158 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

mony that was not substantiated. Venerable and 
worthy abbots were condemned and executed, and 
monks who were devout and scholarly had to share 
the same fate. Books were wantonly defaced and 
destroyed; cartloads of them were burned. 

The king's greed of gold and of power was not ex- 
ceeded by his greed of blood; both are dark stains on 
his character. 

The monastic property, in jewels and plate, in 
money and in estates, confiscated by the king, is re- 
corded to have amounted to over fifty millions of 
pounds sterling; of this vast amount, only about one 
million was expended for the public good. Dr. Cran- 
mer, archbishop of Canterbury, prevailed upon the 
king to pension the aged and infirm monks and nuns, 
and to convert many of the monasteries into schools 
and colleges to be supported out of the revenues that 
pertained to the monasteries. Bishop Latimer peti- 
tioned the king to preserve in each county one mon- 
astery, to be set apart as a place of retirement for aged 
scholars, and of resort for studious younger men; for 
its support, he prayed that the amount needed should 
be secured to it out of the property which had be- 
longed to that monastery. 

After the pensions, endowments and bequests were 
granted, the sharp watchfulness of the king could not 
prevent a considerable portion of the large wealth 
from passing into private channels. The suspicions 
of the king were strongly aroused against Lord Crom- 
well, of having made large personal appropriations to 
himself, over and above the seven rich priories which 
had been assigned to him. 

In parliament and in church convocations, measures 
were taken to complete the separation of the church 
of England from the church of Rome, and to estab- 
lish the royal supremacy over the church of England. 
The final step was taken by the parliament of 1534, 
which passed the act giving to the sovereign of Eng- 



ENGLISH REFORM A TION. 159 

land the title, <c Supreme Head, under Christ, of the 
Church of England." And the same parliament placed 
in the hands of the archbishop of Canterbury the 
spiritual jurisdiction of the church of England. Two 
years after Archbishop Cranmer called a convocation 
of the clergy, for the purpose of reforming the doc- 
trines and regulating the services of the church. Lord 
Cromwell was presented to the convocation as the 
king's vicar general; he brought the greeting of their 
royal head and declared his majesty's desire, that the 
action of the convocation might happily terminate all 
religious discord. 

As a basis of doctrine, the convocation prepared and 
published the Ten Articles, the first of a series of arti- 
cles which concluded with the "Thirty-nine Articles," 
the confession of faith of the church of England. 

Of the ten articles, the first five treated of doc- 
trines; the last five of rites and ceremonies; and the 
convocation decreed that in the future all the services 
of the sanctuary should be conducted in the English 
tongue. To have the Bible in the native tongue had, 
from the first, been a dear wish of the English heart, 
as witness Bede, Alfred, Wycliffe, and others. And at 
this convocation, Archbishop Cranmer proposed to the 
bishops that by their united labor they should give 
the Bible to the English people in the English tongue. 
In his speech he tells them, "It is not much above a 
hundred years since the scripture hath ceased to be 
read in the vulgar tongue within this realm, but our 
language hath so changed, that the former translations 
cannot be well understood by the people; it therefore 
behooves us to set about the work of translation." 
That hundred years and more of which the archbishop 
spoke had shut off the knowledge of the Bible from the 
masses of the people; nevertheless, the archbishop's 
proposition met with decided opposition among the 
bishops, some among them declaring that it is not 
necessary, that it is not best, that the scripture be in 



160 THE JEW AND THE GEE3IAK 

the English tongue and in the hands of the common 
people. And for the time the proposition was over- 
ruled. But true to his purpose, the archbishop and 
those bishops friendly to the measure, set about the 
work and accomplished it; and under royal license, 
the Great Bible was published before the close of the 
year 1537. The royal sanction was readily given to 
place the Great Bible in the churches, to be read and 
expounded to the edification of the people, and the 
privilege of private ownership was further granted, 
but only the better class of the people were able to 
avail themselves of the privilege. 

More than twelve years before the publication of 
the Great Bible, the spirit of William Tyndale, an 
earnest reformer and a learned man, had been stirred 
within him because the scriptures were not in the 
native tongue of the people, especially the New 
Testament ; and he set to work to translate the New 
Testament into English. He declared that his heart's 
desire was " that a copy of the New Testament might 
be in the hands of every plough-boy in England." 
The book was published at Antwerp in 1526 and sent 
over to England; many of the clergy were bitterly op- 
posed to its general circulation ; one bishop bought 
up a whole edition to prevent its circulation 
among the people, but that and other like measures 
failed to keep the book from the people who 
were eager to get it. A party of the bishops 
finding that strategy was of no avail called an 
episcopal convention that they might take measures 
to prevent the New Testament in the vulgar tongue 
from falling into the hands of the unlearned, who 
could not understand it. The convention condemned 
the book to be burned wherever it was found, but Arch- 
bishop Oranmer, who had opposed the action of the 
convention, induced the king to declare its condemna- 
tion of the bodk to be a sentence null and void. 

The gladness of the people at having the New Tes- 



ENGLISH REFORMATION. 161 

tament in their own familiar speech may have been a 
chief means of deciding 1 the archbishop to put the 
whole Bible into English and to place it in the 
churches to be read for the instruction of the people. 



162 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTEB XXVII. 

The English Chukch. 

Henry VIII. died in 1554; his son and successor, 
Edward VI., was but nine years old ; but, young* as he 
was, such were the graces of his mind and manner, he 
was called " a marvelous boy." Bishop Burnet says of 
him, "He had great understanding-, being- capable of 
comprehending- whatever was laid before him, and from 
the first had a liking to all g-ood and generous princi- 
ples." During the minority of the young king, his 
uncle, the Duke of Somerset, was appointed regent or 
protector. The duke was a moderate reformer; all his 
measures favored the reform movement, and he was a 
good man, but not a sagacious ruler. He excited the 
jealousy of the nobles by an over-reach of power and 
the displeasure of the nation by involving the country 
in an unprofitable foreign war. But in adversity his 
character shows to advantage ; when he was deprived 
of power and thrown into prison by the accusing 
nobles he employed his time as a Christian philoso- 
pher; and on his partial restoration to power he 
showed Christian leniency towards his enemies. The 
early years of Edward's reign are memorable for 
measures of pacific conservatism. The Duke of Somer- 
set, holding the reins of government in his hands, in 
duced the first parliament under Edward VI. to pass an 
act against all rash innovations, under penalty of im- 
prisonment; all the measures of the duke were mod- 
erate, but the zeal of the young king was more active 
in the cause of reform. When but a boy of twelve 
years he wrote out a plan for the right furtherance of 
the reformation to its purposed end, the establish- 
ment of true and undefiled religion in the realm of 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 163 

England. He was a warm admirer of Calvin, who 
had dedicated to him two books, and had written him 
several letters of commendation and advice ; Edward 
often said he was pleased and profited both by the 
books and the letters. His young mind soon acquired 
a bent toward Genevan theology and toward Genevan 
plainness in the form of worship, a severe plainness 
which would not tolerate even a cross on the churches. 
The teachings of Calvin exercised considerable influ- 
ence over both the laity and the clergy of the reformed 
church of England. That influence was the mother of 
English puritanism. 

Mere boy as was King Edward VI., such was the 
superiority of his mental powers and the strength of 
his will that during the last three years of his reign 
he was not only a king in name, he was a king in re- 
ality ; he did not hesitate to thrust his pen through 
any act either of parliament or of convocation that did 
not impress him as being for the good of the people 
or of the church. 

Under his royal influence, parliament passed an act 
abolishing the mass and by another act made the ad- 
ministration of the Lord's Supper in both kinds to all 
communicants, the law of the land, and yet another, 
that all pictures and images should be removed from 
the churches. King Edward ordered that the raiment 
on the images should be given to the poor. He held 
the opinion that, if for no other cause, the removal of 
the statues from the churches was necessary in order 
to prevent the living images of Christ from quarreling 
about the lifeless ones. 

Under acts of parliament confession was no longer 
obligatory, and the right of marriage was granted to 
the clergy. About this time, in obedience to a royal 
edict, a full convocation met in Canterbury, both the 
upper house and the lower having full representation. 
The purpose of the convocation was to set forth more 
clearly the doctrines of the reformed church of Eng- 



164 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

land and to establish her liturgy. A large amount 
of work was accomplished by the convocation, but the 
most important work was the elaboration of the Ten 
Articles— under Henry VIII.— into forty-two articles. 
Under Queen Elizabeth the forty-two articles were re- 
duced to thirty-nine, which, from that time to this, 
have continued to be the " Articles of Faith," in the 
Protestant Episcopal church. The bringing forth in 
its entirety of the Book of Common Prayer, known as 
the Prayer Book of Edward VI:, was another important 
work of the convocation. This book established the 
liturgy of the church of England. Though by the 
work of the convocation the liturgy of the church was 
confirmed and settled, the question of vestments con- 
tinued to disquiet both the civil and the clerical 
mind. Many, among the laity and among the clergy, 
had received, as seed sown in good soil, the teachings 
of Bucer — who then held a professorship in England — 
on needful simplicity in clerical costume; but the case 
of Dr. Hooper, bishop elect of Gloucester, finally 
settled the question of vestments, at least so far as 
the clergy were concerned. Dr. Hooper, at his con- 
secration, or rather at the time set for his consecra- 
tion, refused to put on the episcopal vestments, 
stating as the ground of his refusal that they were 
not in keeping with the simplicity of the Christian 
religion; that they were brought into the church for 
the purpose of celebrating mass with greater pomp, 
and had been handed down through the force of tra- 
dition. The consecration was postponed, and the 
matter referred by the king to his beloved and hon- 
ored instructor, Archbishop Cranmer — into whose 
hands, by act of parliament and by royal sanction, 
the spiritual jurisdiction of the church of England 
had been placed. The archbishop called a convention 
of bishops and submitted the matter to their joint 
consideration Bishops Bidley and Latimer declared 
in the name of the body, that tradition should be re- 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 165 

jected in matters of faith, but might be accepted con- 
cerning rites and ceremonies, and the archbishop de- 
cided that while the law of the land sanctioned the use 
of vestments, it was the duty of the clergy to wear 
them, and equally the duty of bishops to wear the 
episcopal vestments. And Bishop Hooper, as a law- 
abiding citizen, consented to receive consecration in 
episcopal vestments; and his act rejoiced the heart of 
the young king, for it restored the harmony of faith 
and action in the church he loved so well. The enact- 
ments known as the "Laws of King Edward" threw 
around the reformed church all necessary safeguards, 
but they were subsequently set at naught by time- 
serving parliaments and the bloody hand of power. 
It is sadly surprising to find the parliaments of the 
sixteenth century so subservient to the sovereign, no 
matter whether protestant or papist. 

Sad was the day for England when young Edward 
died, and sadder still was the day when Mary 
ascended the throne ; sad and bloody were the years of 
her reign. 

Bishop Burnet states that her father, Henry VIII., 
provoked at her obstinacy and impatient of her contra- 
diction to his royal will, had determined to strike ter- 
ror into all who might dare to oppose him by having 
her put to death ; not one of the nobles or bishops who 
favored her faith would so far venture his own interest, 
or hazard his life, as to appeal to the king on her be- 
half. Archbishop Cranmer was the only one who dared 
to stand forth in her cause ; he entreated the king for 
her, he pleaded with him not to forget that he was a 
father, and not to proceed to extremity against his 
young daughter. The archbishop besought the king 
not even to blame her too severely for her obstinate 
adherence to that form of religion which she had 
learned from her mother and from all who had sur- 
rounded her. And the good archbishop wisely urged 
upon the king that such an act would excite the horror 
11 



166 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN, 

of all Europe against himself. Archbishop Cranmer 
saved Mary from the headsman's axe ; she sent him to 
the burning stake. 

After her coronation Mary desired to take such steps 
immediately as would restore the union between Eng- 
land and the Roman church, but her party leaders saw 
the danger attendant upon precipitate action, and 
counselled prudence, or her government might be over- 
thrown without consideration of queen or pope. 

Notwithstanding the talk of lawful proceedings, 
under royal favor measures were carried through with- 
out law ; the images were replaced in the churches, 
papal rites and ceremonies were re-established, together 
with the Latin service and the mass. The things that 
were abolished under law were restored without law. 
But no death sentence for heresy was passed until 
after the marriage of the queen with her cousin, Philip 
of Spain. The united influence of Philip, Cardinal 
Pole, and the queen's confessor, a Spanish Dominican 
monk, aroused and brought into action the bigotry 
and cruelty of her Spanish blood. 

On the charges of sedition and of heresy a large 
number of protestants were arrested, thrown into 
prison, tried and condemned as obstinate heretics. 
The blood of the martyrs began to flow, and before the 
close of Mary's reign two hundred and fifty-one pro- 
testants of the laity, men and women, and twenty -six 
of the clergy, endured the terrible death of burning at 
the stake, because they would not abjure their faith. 
The archbishops of Canterbury and of York, and 
Bishops Ridley, Latimer and Hooper were arrested and 
cast into prison. The life of protestants being hourly 
in danger, more than a thousand of them fled to the 
continent, and under protestant protection, remained 
in voluntary exile until after the death of the bloody 
queen. 

On the meeting of the next parliament Dr. Taylor, 
bishop of Lincoln, and Dr. Harley, bishop of Here- 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH 167 

ford, determined to present themselves in the house 
of lords to justify their doctrine and insist upon pro- 
testant rights under the existing law of King- Edward. 
They felt called to this duty, as the heads of the re- 
formed church were in prison on the charge of treason 
and of sedition. The two bishops presented them- 
selves in the house of lords in their episcopal robes, 
but they refused to do reverence at the opening service 
of the mass, which excited a tumult in the house, and 
they were violently thrust out and were not again per- 
mitted to enter. It lay not in their power to extend 
other than spiritual help to their brethren. 

Some sixteen bishoprics and twelve thousand bene- 
fices were conferred upon papal aspirants. Mary and 
her Spanish husband resolved to do all in their power, 
by law when they could command a compliant parlia- 
ment, and without law when they could not, to lay 
England at the feet of the pope. 

To the papal party and to the queen, the Princess 
Elizabeth was an object of fear and jealousy; a charge 
of disloyalty was concocted and brought against her; 
she was arrested and sent a prisoner to the Tower, and 
treated with such severity that her health failed under 
it. The queen feared to push her power to extremity 
and the princess was removed to Hatfield, and the 
severity of her treatment so relaxed, that it was but 
partial imprisonment, but she was surrounded by 
spies, eager to seize upon any suspicious word or deed. 
The princess being aware of the fact, refrained from all 
participation in outer affairs and gave her time to 
study. 

During the imprisonment of Bishop Ridley and 
Bishop Latimer, many efforts were made to induce 
them to recant, promises of royal favor were held out 
to them, but all to no purpose; they stood unmoved, 
rooted and grounded in the faith as it is in Christ. 
They were declared obstinate heretics and sentenced to 
the stake. In the city of Oxford on the sixteenth day 



168 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

of October, 1555, these faithful ministers of the Word 
of God were led to the place of execution, on the south 
front of Balliol College; at the stake they embraced 
each other, Bishop Bidley saying, "Be of good heart, 
brother, God will either assuage the fury of the flames 
or enable us to abide it." Bishop Ridley was a man 
of profound learning and sound judgment, and ranks 
as the ablest man of the English reformation; Bishop 
Latimer, though less learned, was a pattern of piety 
and Christian simplicity, a father in his diocese and a 
leader in the English reformation. 

Archbishop Oranmer had been also removed to Ox- 
ford, many arguments had been presented to him, 
which he had refuted, and many inducements which he 
had withstood, but alas for the weakness of the flesh! 
at last, he signed his name to the papers of recanta- 
tion, which were drawn up and brought to him in his 
prison. But when the set day came, on which he was 
to declare his recantation, his conversion to the church 
of Rome, in deep contrition of spirit, he declared that 
in all his life there was nothing he so deeply deplored 
as he did the setting of his hand to those papers. 
And there, standing face to face with death, in one of 
its most horrible forms, he rejected the supremacy of 
the pope and acknowledged the scripture as his high- 
est law. On the south front of Balliol College, Arch- 
bishop Cranmer was burned at the stake. He met his 
end as a brave Christian, his weakness was gone. As 
the flames surged upwards, he held out his right hand 
saying, "This unworthy right hand," and as the flames 
rose higher, he cried with Stephen, "Lord Jesus re- 
ceive my spirit," and so passed away from earth. Two 
days after his death Cardinal Pole was consecrated 
Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Though the flames consumed the bodies of the 
martyrs, they could not destroy the love of the re- 
formed religion* in the hearts of the survivors. Those 
who loved the simplicity of the gospel of Christ, with 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 169 

caution and secrecy met often together under the 
care of faithful shepherds willing- to risk their lives in 
order to feed the flocks committed to their care. 

Queen Mary died on the morning 1 of the seventeenth 
of November, 1558, and as the sovereign never dies, 
Elizabeth was in a few hours proclaimed queen, and 
on the proclamation a great shout went up from the 
people, "God save Queen Elizabeth, long and happy 
be her reign !" The funeral obsequies and the inter- 
ment of the late queen were conducted with all the 
usual honors of royalty, though few sad faces were 
seen, save those of the papal priests and bishops. " who 
were forced to betake themselves to secret groans, 
since they durst not vent them in public." Shortly 
afterward the confessor of the late queen and most of 
the Spaniards and Italians fled from the country. 
When the news of Queen Mary's death reached France, 
the cardinal of Lorraine endeavored to induce the 
pope to declare Elizabeth illegitimate and Mary of 
Scotland the rightful heir to the crown of England, 
but Pope Paul IV. seemed not inclined to move in 
the matter. 



170 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTEE XXVIII. 

Queen Elizabeth. 

On her accession, Queen Elizabeth issued a procla- 
mation that no breach, alteration, or change should 
be allowed of any order or usage established in the 
realm. Her opening policy was conservative, as had 
been the policy of the first years of the reign of her 
brother Edward. 

The coronation- of the queen was not until after the 
New Year. She was crowned at Westminster Abbey, 
" with all the magnificence attending the coronation of 
illustrious sovereigns." 

On her way to the abbey, as the queen drove under 
one of the triumphal arches erected for the occasion, 
an elegantly bound Bible was let down to her by a 
child who stood on the arch, representing Truth ; the 
queen received the book with reverence, and humbly 
kissing the sacred volume declared that it pleased her 
more than any other of the offerings of the day. 

The queen began her long reign with wise modera- 
tion, she continued several of the officers of state who 
were papists, but her chief advisers were Sir Robert 
Cecil, afterward Lord Burleigh, and Sir Nicholas 
Bacon, both staunch protestants. In was the opinion 
of these ministers that a certain measure of considera- 
tion was due from the queen to all her subjects, and 
that such a course would prove the surest way of 
uniting the people in one faith and in one form of 
worship. 

A royal mandate was issued ordering that all who 
had been imprisoned on account of their religious 
belief should be v set at liberty; but a general question- 
ing arose, "When will the queen begin to restore the 



QUEEN ELIZABETH. 171 

former purity of the church?" To this question the 
answer was given, " At the next parliament." 

The first parliament under the reign of Queen Eliza- 
beth met in January, 1559, and sat until May. The 
first act placed upon the statute book of that memor- 
able parliament was an act to re-establish the inde- 
pendence of the Church of England. The Book of 
Common Prayer was restored to the churches under a 
new act of uniformity, and other measures were enacted 
of high importance. After these acts of parliament, 
some of the English papal clergy gave in their 
adhesion to the established church, some retired to 
private life and others went over to France. The 
news of this orderly and successful launching of the 
English Ship of State and Church was unwelcome 
news at Rome, and Pius IV., successor to Paul IV., 
wrote a long, loving letter to the queen, urging her 
to return to the bosom of the church for the salvation 
of her own soul and of her whole nation. Such a step, 
he assures her, "will fill the universal church with 
rejoicing and gladness, yea, you shall make glad 
heaven itself, and encircle your brow with a glory far 
exceeding that of the crown you wear." The pope 
sent his letter by a confidential agent, who was author- 
ized to press upon the queen every possible concili- 
atory measure. With a few changes the agent was to 
accept the English Prayer Book, to permit service in 
the vulgar tongue, and to proffer to herself the most 
flattering personal promises. But to all these Queen 
Elizabeth turned a deaf ear. 

The pope finding that flattery and promises of in- 
creased power availed naught with the Queen of Eng- 
land, issued against her a bull of excommunication, 
and by fraud and force he labored to bring about her 
destruction. He tried to excite rebellion among Eng- 
lish Catholics, and at the same time he endeavored to 
induce the King of Spain to make war upon England 
and conquer the country for himself, promising to 



172 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

bestow the papal sanction on his sovereignty. But 
the pope's fair-seeming and foul-scheming were alike 
bootless. 

Pope Pius V. endeavored through Mary Queen of 
Scots, then held in durance in England, to subvert the 
government, assassinate the queen, destroy the Church 
of England, and briug the country under the papal 
yoke. Into this plot the Cardinal of Lorraine and the 
Duke of Guise threw the whole force of their in- 
fluence. An Italian merchant residing in Eugland 
was appointed secret papal nuncio and commissioned 
to form a secret league of English and Scotch 
catholics ; this league was to circulate among the people 
a papal bull, excommunicating the queen and all 
who should thereafter yield her obedience. The 
pope's bull deprived her of her kingdom and freed 
her subjects from their oaths of allegiance; and 
further, commanded all English subjects to acknowl- 
edge Mary of Scotland as queen of England. 

These papal measures were pushed so strenuously 
that the northern rebellion was soon organized and 
waiting further orders. The duke of Norfolk was 
chosen commander, and the necessary money supplies 
were remitted by the pope, and with her own consent 
the pope had promised to bestow upon the duke of 
Norfolk the hand of queen Mary, whom he pronounced 
to be Queen of Scotland and of England. While 
these things were being done in England, the pope, 
backed by the Cardinal of Lorraine, "did manage 
dexterously with the court of France, in order to its 
favoring the Catholics of England." The pope also 
goaded the king of Spain to send an invading army 
into England from Flanders, to which country he sent 
"a great supply of money." 

Never was so far reaching a plot more sagaciously 
laid, nor its details carried out with greater secrecy. 
The simultaneous uprising in the north of England, 
the landing of a strong detachment of the Spanish 



QUEEN ELIZABETH. 173 

army in the southeast, and the burning of all the ship- 
ping on the Thames, must have overpowered protest- 
ant England, and sounded the death knell of her es- 
tablished church had she been unsuspecting and un- 
prepared, as the pope so fondly hoped and so fully 
believed her to be. But England was not rest- 
ing unsuspectingly at her ease, she knew the 
enemies with whom she had to deal. Lord Burleigh 
maintained efficient agents in Italy, who, by freely 
using "the silver key," gained access to the secrets of 
the conspirators. From one of his agents Lord Burleigh 
received timely information of the conspiracy in all its 
details. " A list was forwarded to him of several con- 
sultations amongst the cardinals, bishops and others 
of the several orders of Home, now a-contriving and 
conspiring against her gracious majesty and the estab- 
lished Church of England." This information put the 
English government on the alert and using all diligence 
many suspicious persons were arrested, among whom 
was the Duke of Norfolk. Shortly thereafter a man 
bound for Scotland was taken at the crossing of a 
river, he had concealed about him letters from the 
Duke of Norfolk and money to the value of a thousand 
pounds, money and letters to be delivered to certain 
Catholic nobles in Scotland, the letters notifying them 
to have their forces ready at a given time. 

The Duke of Norfolk, his secretary and several others 
implicated in the treason were tried, condemned and 
executed before the pope's well laid plot had fully 
matured. Her gracious majesty and the established 
Church of England were saved through the wisdom 
and faithfulness of an agent in Italy, whose name was 
Denham; his "List" is preserved in manuscript in the 
British Museum. 

Catena mentions with what excess of sorrow the pope 
lamented the failure of his well laid plans. 

One other effort 3 the great and final effort to con- 
quer England for the pope, was made in 1588. In 
May of that year Spain sent out her mighty fleet, to 



174 TEE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

which the pope had given every aid which he could 
possibly render; under his special apostolic blessing 
the Spanish Armada sailed for England to destroy 
heresy in that island. But before the summer closed 
the great Armada was destroyed. The winds and the 
storms were the allies of the gallant British sailors in 
the destruction of the great invading fleet of Spain. 
This great victory was a prime means of assuring the 
perpetuity of the Reformation in England. 

The enfranchisement of the human mind begun by 
the Renaissance and carried on to highei planes by 
the reformation in its fourfold development, justifies 
Pastor Bungener in saying that, "Humanly speaking, 
the reformation was the daughter of learning, and she 
has everywhere labored to secure the reign of knowl- 
edge ; in doing this she but secures what is her own 
and thereby that which belongeth unto the gospel." 
Yea, through the continuous unfolding of the vital 
principles of the reformation, human nature will con- 
tinue to develop a higher civilization and a deeper 
enthusiasm of humanity, and will attain unto a clearer 
apprehension of the sublime simplicity of the truth 
as it is in Jesus, and thereby grow unto the stature of 
sons and daughters of God, loyal to Truth, to Liberty 
and to Love. 



PART IT 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Great Men of Florence. 
Statesman; Artist; Prophet — Priest and Historian. 

In our strenuous age, abounding- in mechanical in- 
ventions, in manifold industries, in continously increas- 
ing wants, in the stress of business and in the whirl of 
society, the large majority of men and women cannot 
find the time to dig* and delve in the mines of learn- 
ing. And hence it behooves those who are urged on 
by the mandate of nature to find themselves in duty 
bound to share with their brethren the spoils they 
have won. 

All those who believe that the highest study of man 
is man, feel a perennial interest in the leading events 
of the lives of men, particularly of men who have ex- 
erted a formative influence upon their times. Such 
men were Cosmo di Medici, and his grandson, the 
Great Lorenzo. Such men were the unique Art- 
king, Michael Angelo, the prophet-priest Savonarola, 
and the concise historian Machiavelli. 

These men helped forward the regeneration of letters, 
of religion and of art. And beautiful Florence, city of 
their birth, is well worthy of a brief consideration, for 
she was the cherishing mother of learning and of art, 
and she was the capital of the most renowned of the 
republics of Italy. 

Even as the mighty oak grows from a small acorn, so 
the great city of Florence grew from a very small be- 
ginning, from a few warehouses built in the plain of 



176 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

the Arno for the convenience of the merchants of 
Fiesole, an ancient town on the summit of the moun- 
tain. In the wake of the warehouse followed homes 
for the traders, thereby saving both the time and labor 
which had been spent in climbing" the mountain to 
reach their homes in Fiesole; soon streets were laid 
off and blocks of houses were built, and Florence grew 
into an important mercantile town. But this was the 
re-birth of a humble town said to have been founded 
by Charlemagne. 

In his history of Florence, Machiavelli states that 
the town was destroyed by Totilla, king of the Ostro- 
goths, and that it lay in ruins for two hundred and 
fifty years. cc It was," he says, " built by Charlemagne, 
but attained no distinction and did not greatly in- 
crease in numbers nor effect anything worthy of 
memory, being kept down by foreign rulers." 

In 1215 Florence succeeded in establishing her lib- 
erty. After that time, says the historian of Florence, 
" it is scarcely possible to imagine the power and au- 
thority Florence in a short time acquired ; she became 
not only the head of Tuscany, but one of the greatest 
cities of Italy." 

And Florence led the van in the march of progres- 
sion from mediaeval to modern times. 

" Where smiling Arno sweeps, 
Was modern luxury and commerce born, 
And buried learning rose redeemed to a new morn." 

" Sad, visaged Dante," prince of Italian poets, was a 
native of Florence, and he loved his native city with 
passionate devotion. In the struggle between the 
citizens and the nobles, Dante, believing that true lib- 
erty was under the old empire, sided with the nobles 
and the emperor. To his poet mind the ideal was 
more real than the actual; his poetic enthusiasm led 
him to glorify the venerated past, and oppose the lib- 
erty for which the citizens were striving as subversive 
of the divine order of things. 



REPUBLIC OF FLORENCE. 1 i 1 

The citizens succeeded in establishing republican 

liberty, and blindly banished their poet because his 

political views did not accord with their own. After his 

death they set up his statue for the honor of Florence. 

In his sonnet on Dante, Michael Angelo asks : 

u How shall we speak of him ? for our blind eyes 
Are all unequal to his dazzling rays. 
Easier it is to blame his enemies 
Than it is to tell his meed of praise. 
For he, great poet, did explore the realms of woe ; 
And at his coming high heaven did expand 
Her lofty gates, to whom his native land 
Refused to open hers." 

Florence reached the acme of her glory under the 
rule of the di Medicis. And eventually, under un- 
worthy descendants of the same family, she fell from 
her high estate. The proud and powerful republic of 
Florence was crushed under the heel of the later di 
Medicis, who made themselves princes and changed 
the republic into a principality. 

The first of that famous family who attained political 
distinction was Salvestro di Medici; in 1378 he was 
elected governor of the city and chief magistrate of 
the republic. From the end of his term of office to 
the close of his life he was the leading citizen of Flor- 
ence. The family did not belong to the ancient no- 
bility, but stood first among the popular families. The 
ancient nobility had for more than a generation been 
restive under the growing influence of the di Medicis ; 
in this only were they united, their contentions and 
quarrels among themselves not unfrequently led to 
public riots. When Giovanni di Medici was elected to 
the chief magistracy they strove to displace him, but 
he quietly held to the even tenor of his way and si- 
lenced all opposers. He loved peace and shunned 
war. He relieved his fellow citizens in adversity and 
protected them in prosperity. He never applied the 
public money to his own uses, but contributed of his 
private wealth to the public weal. "He died," says 
Machiaveili, "very rich in money, but more exceeding 



178 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

rich in good repute and in the best wishes of mankind, 
and his wealth and his great fame were preserved and 
increased by his son Cosmo, who succeeded him in the 
government." 

But the enmity of the noble factions raged more 
fiercely against Cosmo than it had done against his 
father. The nobles agreed to bury their animosities 
against each other in order to combine against him 
and procure his banishment. They succeeded — Cosmo 
was sent into exile. He received his sentence without 
complaint, and assured the Signory — or Congress — 
that he would quietly remain in the place to which 
they had banished him. The people were despondent 
at the departure of a man so generally beloved, and it 
was not long before the Signory found out that they 
had made a great mistake ; tumults and riots soon filled 
the city, "her condition was little short of anarchy. " 
The Signory recalled Cosmo, and begged him to take 
again the reins of government. The return of Cosmo 
to the city which had banished him resembled the 
coming home of a conqueror on whose banners sat vic- 
tory. As he approached the city he was met by a vast 
concourse of people, and with universal consent was 
hailed as " Father of His Country." And he ruled 
Florence long and wisely. He was the friend and 
patron of men of letters, and did much to advance the 
new learning. "When he died the republic of Flor- 
ence and all Christian princes condoled with his son 
Piero." The funeral of Cosmo was conducted with the 
utmost pomp and solemnity. All classes of citizens 
followed his remains to the tomb in the church of San 
Lorenzo. By a public decree, on his tomb was in- 
scribed : "Father of His Country." Piero succeeded to 
the government. His rule was mild ; he did not very 
long survive his father. He left two sons, Lorenzo 
and Giuliano, who ruled conjointly. Lorenzo, though 
a young man, .resolved that all public transactions 
should bear his impress ; he was ambitious, but his 
ambition was tempered by prudence and wisdom. 



REPUBLIC OF FLORENCE. 179 

The family of Pazzi was immensely rich and be- 
longed to the ancient nobility. They considered 
themselves neglected in the distribution of public 
honors, both by the Signory and the di Medici, and 
they set about devising ways and means of vengeance. 
They sought out all who were opposed to the Medicis, 
not only in Florence but in Rome. 



180 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTEE XXX. 

CONSPIEAOY AGAINST THE DI MEDICIS. 

The reigning- pope, Sixtus IV., was a man of low 
origin and of lower nature, but by means of his talents 
he became general of the Order of St. Francis, then 
cardinal and finally pope. Machiavelli says: "Sixtus 
IV. was the first pope to show to the world how much 
that, which was previously regarded as sinful, lost its 
iniquity when committed by a pontiff." Sixtus IV. 
resolved to hold the territories of the church in obedi- 
ence, and, as a fearful warning to the rebellious 
minded, he caused the city of Spoletto to be sacked 
because the people rebelled against his arbitrary 
authority. For the same cause he besieged Castello ; 
the prince of Castello was the friend of Lorenzo di 
Medici, and in his hour of need he applied to Lorenzo 
for aid, and Lorenzo sent him the desired assistance. 
This act aroused the anger of the pope against the di 
Medicis and made him their bitter enemy. The plot 
to compass the death of the two brothers, Lorenzo 
and Giuliano, was hatched in Rome, headed by one of 
Pazzi brothers, who resided in Rome. Cardinal Riario, 
a protege of the pope, and the Archbishop of Pisa 
were among the active conspirators, and the pope 
lent his aid by offering the papal troops. Emissaries 
were sent to Florence to sound Jacopo Pazzi, the 
father. He at first, from religious scruples, declined 
to join the conspiracy, but the pope soon removed all 
scruples, and he entered heartily into the plot and 
readily assisted in arranging the diabolical details. 
The papal troops were quartered by companies, so as 
not to arouse ^suspicion, in tow r ns near to Florence, 
and it was shortly rumored through the city that Car- 
dinal Riario would honor Florence with a visit. 



CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE DI MEDICIS. 181 

The Medicis were aware of the animosity of the 
Pazzi and of their desire to deprive them of the gov- 
ernment, and were anticipating an open attempt on 
the part of the Pazzi to win over the civil authority, 
and, if possible, depose them ; a conspiracy to assas- 
sinate them they did not suspect. The cardinal came 
with a large retinue, composed chiefly of conspirators. 
The Medicis were invited to call on the cardinal, and it 
was decided that as the brothers sat in the social 
group the assassins were to do their work, but the 
brothers went singly, and thus frustrated the diabolical 
purpose for that time. 

As a last hope of getting them together it was de- 
termined that the assassination should take place 
in the cathedral during high mass. The brothers 
Pazzi had chosen to be the assassins, but on entering 
the church the elder Pazzi was awed by the place, 
and declared that he could not kill a man in that 
sacred edifice. Among the conspirators were two 
men to whom secret murder was no unusual thing — 
one of the men was a priest — they were nothing loth, 
for the largeness of the pay, to take the places of the 
Pazzi. The signal agreed upon was the first chime of 
the bell during mass. 

The congregation assembled, but it was observed 
that Giuliano cli Medici was absent. One of the Pazzi 
went to fetch him, and, with great show of kindness, 
sat beside him. 

The solemn service began; the stroke of the bell 
fell upon unsuspecting ears, but instantly the sons of 
Belial struck their victims. Giuliano stepped forward, 
but the dagger of the Pazzi at his side struck him to 
the floor. Though the victim lay bleeding and 
wounded to the death, again and again Francesco 
Pazzi thrust his dagger in him. In his hellish greed 
of blood he unwittingly gave himself a wound, which 
proved his death wound. Lorenzo was in a distant 
part of the church : at the moment of the signal the 
12 



182 THE JEW AND THE GEB3IAN. 

assassin, who had been stationed near him, struck 
him on the neck with his dagger, but failing to touch 
a vital part, Lorenzo sprang up and bravely defended 
himself. 

So suddenly had the diabolical scene transpired, 
that the congregation could not at first understand 
the cause of the tumult, but seeing Lorenzo attacked 
and fighting for his life, they rushed to him and bore 
him in their arms to the sacristy and secured the 
strong doors. The uproar in the church was terrible ; 
the people in their rage rushed at the cardinal, but his 
followers pushed him close to the altar and surrounded 
and defended him; the assassin priest and his accom- 
plice were slain on the chancel pavement. Without the 
Archbishop of Pisa, commanding a division of the 
papal troops marched to the palace of government. 

The officers of government were required to live in 
the palace during their term of office. They were at 
dinner when they were startled by the noise below and 
by the clash of arms, but they did not lose their 
presence of mind; they snatched up such arms as 
could be readily obtained, and hastily gathering the 
armed servitors of the palace, they put themselves at 
their head and forced back the besieging troops, which 
were led by the archbishop and one of the Pazzi. 
Both of these commanders were caught, ropes were 
thrown around their necks, and they were pushed 
through the windows and there they hung; quite a 
large number of the sold:ers were pitched through 
windows and falling on the pavement below, some 
were killed and others lay writhing, bruised and man- 
gled by the fall. Part of the troops succeeded in forc- 
ing the doors of the ground floor and barricaded them- 
selves there. 

The great alarm bell was rung, the whole city heard 
the alarm, men hurriedly armed and soon the streets 
were thronged .with armed citizens hurrying to the 
public square of the palace. They made short work 



CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE DI MEDICIS. 183 

with the papal troops, which had barricaded them- 
selves in the lower story of the palace of government. 
Not knowing* the state of affairs, Jacopo Pazzi, old 
and infirm, rode forth with a hundred horsemen, to in- 
duce the people and the Signory to aid in destroying 
the Medici, and putting down all their adherents; his 
appeals and his promises were alike unheeded as he 
rode through the streets. When he reached the public 
square and saw the dead body of his son and that of 
the archbishop hanging from the windows of the 
palace, he knew the conspiracy was crushed; he 
turned his horse and fled to the country, his men fol- 
lowing; he was pursued, captured, brought back, tried 
and executed within four days. 



184 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

LOEENZO THE MAGNIFICENT. 

When the news of the proceedings reached Rome, 
the pope raged in his anger ; he hurled his bull of ex- 
communication against Florence, and threatened the 
city with the Interdict. The people of Florence were 
indignant, and yet, alarmed at the dread prospect, 
fearless hearts quailed at the thought of the Interdict. 
The news of the death of the pope shortly after was 
welcome tidings to Florence. The new pope, Inno- 
cent VIII., was the friend and the relation of the house 
of Medici, no fear now of excommunication or dread of 
Interdict to Florentines for loyalty to the Medicis. 

The fearful tragedy through which they had passed 
drew the people more closely to Lorenzo. They swore 
to stand by him with life and property. And like his 
grandfather Cosmo, Lorenzo knew how to make him- 
self the beloved of the people. Though he ruled as a 
prince, he assumed no title, and preserved a republi- 
can form of government and went among the citizens 
as one of them, taking part in their carnivals and 
other amusements. The children knew and loved him. 

At the suggestion of the artist Donatello, Cosmo di 
Medici placed his collection of ancient art in a garden 
which was opened to the public; this was the germ of 
the famous art gardens of Lorenzo. To all artists he 
extended the privilege of studying the many noble 
specimens of antique art in the Medici gardens. In 
these gardens the young Michael Angelo began his 
artist life. His clay models attracted Lorenzo, and 
he encouraged the youth to try his hand on marble. 
Michael Angelo was pleased with the suggestion, and 
chose a mutilated mask representing a laughing faun 



LORENZO THE MAGINIFICEKT. 185 

as bis first subject. Lorenzo, on seeing the completed 
work, congratulated the youthful artist on his success, 
but remarked, "You have given the old faun all his 
teeth, at his age it is presumable that he had lost some." 
When Lorenzo came again to visit the young artist, 
he noticed that the old faun had lost an upper tooth, 
and the gum was so drilled as to give the appearance 
of its having fallen out. The aptitude of the youth 
pleased Lorenzo so much that he not only took him 
under his special patronage, but offered him a home 
in his house and he treated him as a son. 

Lorenzo di Medici was an accomplished scholar and 
writer, and a valuable friend to men of letters and to 
artists. By his example in private life, in public ad- 
dresses, and through his writings, he brought the 
native tongue into general use and into such high re- 
spect, that it became the language of the state and of 
literature. He established schools in the city and in 
all parts of the republic of Florence; he also greatly 
enlarged and adorned the city of Florence, and he 
delighted to attract to her both genius and talent. 
Through his influence Savonarola was called to Flor- 
ence, and it w T as equally through his influence that 
Savonarola was elected prior of the convent of San 
Marco, a favorite monastery with the di Medicis. 
Cosmo had it rebuilt on a grand scale, and Lorenzo 
bestowed upon it a valuable library. 

Savonarola was called to Florence in the same year 
that Michael Angelo became an inmate of the Medici 
palace. Michael Angelo regarded Lorenzo with love 
and gratitude. Savonarola believed that his call to 
Florence, to the prior-ship of San Marco, was from 
God. "Lorenzo," he declared, "is but an instrument 
in His hand, to effect His will, and gratitude is not 
due to an instrument." Savonarola regarded Lorenzo 
as a worldly-minded man, whose chief pleasures were in 
worldly vanities, and he refused to hold intercourse 
with such a man. 



186 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

From the time that Cosmo rebuilt the convent, it 
became the rule that each newly elected prior should 
acknowledge the honor — to the ruling- di Medici — by 
calling at the palace of the di Medici. Savonarola 
positively refused to comply with the custom, neither 
would he allow the convent to continue to appropriate 
the liberal donations of Lorenzo, — he required that 
they should be turned over to institutions needing 
assistance, and to other charities. Lorenzo did not 
resent the rudeness of the prior, he paid no attention 
to what he regarded as fanatical language and conduct. 
He admired the talents, the courage of his convictions 
and the unselfishness of the man, and allowed him, 
unmolested, to govern the convent in his own way. 
And so the time passed peacefully and happily in 
Florence to the close of the brief life of Lorenzo the 
Magnificent. 

When he lay on his death bed he sent for Sav- 
onarola, — he came, but refused to see the sick man. 
Count Pico, alike friend to the friar and to the 
ruler, expostulated with the friar upon his unchristian 
conduct, and succeeded in convincing him that he was 
not acting in accordance with the spirit of Christ. 
Savonarola then consented to go to the sick room and 
perform the service for the dying. Politian writes, 
"Lorenzo made the responses in a tone so firm and 
gentle that men might have thought the friends present, 
with trembling voices, were the dying ones, not Lo- 
ranzo." In the year 1492 A. D., a memorable year, 
Lorenzo di Medici departed this life, aged forty-four 
years, the most illustrious of the rulers of Florence. 
The whole city bewailed his death, and well they 
might, for the sun of her glory set with him. 

From the time of his death to the fall of the re- 
public Florence was in a continuous state of change 
and disorder; tumults and anarchy at times prevailed. 
During one of these fearful tumults, Michael Angelo 
escaped to Venice and, after a brief stay, went from 



Lorenzo the maginificent. 187 

there to Bologna. The growing reputation of the 
young artist induced the Duke of Bologna to attach 
him to his court, and as court artist Michael Angelo 
remained two years in Bologna, but the increasing 
jealousy of the native artists caused him to return to 
his native city, but he did not find it the same Flor- 
ence he had left. In less than three years an entire 
change had been wrought. The palace of di Medici, 
once his delightful home, was an empty ruin, the 
famous gardens where he had studied were a scene of 
desolation ; pictures and statuary had been destroyed, 
the old joyous life w r as gone; of his artist friends, 
many had fled. Those who remained had become 
disciples of Savonarola, and Savonarola had become 
the soul of Florence. 

This remarkable man was born in Ferrara in 1452. 
His nature had an intense religious bent which mani- 
fested itself through all his childhood. He took no 
pleasure in the sports of boys, always looking on the 
solemn side of life his heart warmed only to the 
church. As a young man he privately left his father's 
house 3 went to Bologna and sought admission in a 
Dominican convent. His parents were anxious that 
he should study medicine and succeed his grandfather 
who was a distinguished physician. On leaving home 
Savonarola left a letter to his father stating the neces- 
sity laid upon him to pursue the course he was taking. 

He was received in the convent, and for six years he 
remained a humble brother of his order, occasionally 
visiting other cities to give spiritual instruction and 
to hear confessions. But there was no sign of the 
smouldering fire of his eloquence until all unexpect- 
edly at Brescia it burst forth with such power that it 
shook men's souls and drew them awe-struck to the 
foot of the altar. His lips seemed touched with the 
live coal of prophecy; he foretold the terrible doom 
impending over Italy, especially over Brescia. 

The prophetic fire continued to burn in his soul, 



188 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

and lie, with an impassioned eloquence which made 
men tremble before him, declared the judgments of 
the Lord against the country on account of the gen- 
eral wickedness, and more especially the wickedness 
of those who had been called to minister in holy 
things. He summoned the clergy and all Italy to 
humble themselves in deep repentance before the 
Lord that His hand might be stayed in the outpouring 
of the vials of His wrath. Savonarola's fame as a 
preacher was established before his call to Florence. 

His power over the minds of men was remarkable ; 
he seemed to hold the souls of his hearers in his hand, 
and his influence continued to increase until it bore 
him to the grand climax, legislator and ruler of Flor- 
ence, but still continuing to be the great preacher. 
Multitudes thronged to hear him. The church of San 
Marco was too small, he must go to the great cathe- 
dral, and it became so crowded that men climbed the 
walls to catch, through the windows, a glimpse of his 
keen, delicate features and to hear his deep, thrilling 
voice. 



SAVONAROLA. 189 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Savonarola. 

In the deplorable condition to which the rivalry of 
factions and the general disorder had reduced Flor- 
ence, the signory and citizens called Savonarola from 
his convent — where his government was considered a 
model government — to come to the rescue of the city, 
to frame a government and to restore order. Savona- 
rola obeyed the call ; he summoned the men of the 
city to meet him in the cathedral; the summons was 
promptly obeyed and Savonarola submitted to the as- 
sembly four great principles on which to found their 
constitution: "Fear God; Prefer the good of the State 
before personal advantage; Grant a general amnesty; 
Form a great council,— have no parliament." The great 
council was to be composed of men of blameless char- 
acter, over thirty years of age, whose fathers had 
served in former governments. 

Among the many orders of magistrates which he 
instituted, was one of young men and youths, who 
were to ferret out blasphemers and gamblers and cite 
them before the great council ; they were to seize all 
cards and dice, and they were to admonish all women 
and young girls who wore costly attire. This young 
order of magistrates not only fulfilled their orders, 
but were zealous to exceed them ; they forced them 
selves into houses and took out mirrors, masks, per- 
fumes, music and books of classic poetry. Savona- 
rola commended them for their religious zeal, and this 
from him was to them an honor superior to that of 
knighthood, for he w T as both temporal and spiritual 
prince of Florence, although without the title. To 
gratify the native love of public spectacular exhibi- 



190 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

tions, lie organized " The Procession," which at the 
same time gave a religious object lesson. A taber- 
nacle was carried to the public square and men clad 
in white marched before it, singing- and chanting as 
they went ; they were followed by thousands of chil- 
dren, all clad in white and joining in the song. As 
they passed San Marco's, a red cross was given to 
each one in the procession. The procession stopped 
at the church of Santa Maria dei Fiore ; on the altars 
of the church were vases for offerings, into which were 
poured gold and jewels, beside the altars were chests 
for costly hangings and gorgeous robes. 

The next year, 1497, Savonarola desired to make " The 
Procession " still more impressive by being what he con- 
sidered more intensely religious. "Florence should 
make a more costly sacrifice of her vanities and worldly 
treasures ; the people should be compelled to surrender 
whatever offended monkish austerity. Florence was 
stripped of all that was elegant and beautiful." 

It is estimated that twenty thousand crowns would 
not cover the cost of the valuable articles which were 
arranged in a pile to be burned, a spectacle to delight 
fanatics. 

The pope was offended at the proceedings of the 
friar on the previous year, and had appointed a com- 
mission of Dominican theologians to deliberate upon 
the teachings and the conduct of Savonarola, and that 
commission, with one exceptiou, had condemned him 
as guilty of heresy and of disobedience. But the 
pope was averse to extreme proceedings against 
Savonarola and sought to silence him by the offer of 
an archbishopric. The offer was of no avail, Savona- 
rola was supreme ruler of Florence and the pulpit 
was his throne, and with fiery eloquence he hurled 
denunciations against pope, kings and people. He 
spared none whose works were wicked. 

Savonarola's -imagination was neither brilliant nor 
far-reaching, yet he forced home-truths upon his 



SAVONAROLA. 191 

hearers in such an impassioned manner and in such 
burning words that they were often wrought up to a 
state of frenzy, a condition of mind not calculated to 
bring" forth lasting" g*ood. 

After "The Procession" of 1497 the pope deter- 
mined to delay no longer. Savonarola was inter- 
dicted from preaching- and the pope hurled against 
him a bull of excommunication for heresy. Savona- 
rola protested against the charge of heresy, and 
appealed to his sermons and to his book, "The Tri- 
umph of the Cross," in proof of the correctness of his 
protest. 

Shortly after, Florence was stricken with the plague, 
and during that sad time papal bulls were forgotten. 

Savonarola would not leave the plague-stricken city, 
though pleasant places of retirement were urged upon 
him. When the city had partially recovered from the 
terrible pestilence, the friends of Savonarola besought 
the pope to withdraw the sentence of excommunica- 
tion, and he would have withdrawn it but for being 
angered anew against the friar on account of the 
course he had pursued in crushing a late conspiracy 
against his government. The pope was so incensed 
that he issued a brief interdicting Savonarola not 
only from preaching in general but from preaching in 
San Marco's. Savonarola obeyed the letter of the 
brief but evaded the spirit by giving exhortations, or 
conferences, as his talks were termed, to sustain the 
faitji and encourage the zeal of his followers. But the 
people of Florence after a time grew restive under the 
restriction, and during the winter they pressed Savon- 
arola to preach again in public. He consented, and 
preached in the cathedral. It was crowded with eager 
listeners who by his contagious eloquence were borne 
along as by a flood. But notwithstanding the enthusi- 
asm of the multitude, his austerities had created a 
faction in the city against him, and some of the most 
hostile excited a tumult around the cathedral and 



192 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

assailed the building with stones, but the Signory 
sustained him as a preacher as well a ruler. 

Savonarola has been called "an incarnate idea, 
animated, urged and sustained by one purpose." He 
resolved that "The Procession" of 1498 should exceed 
the former processions in magnificence. Superb ban- 
ners, sacred images, and other rich symbols were 
added, to gratify both spiritual pride and the love of 
display. For this procession the ferrets were to make 
their work exhaustive. No hidden garment of Baby- 
lon was to escape them, marble busts, pictures, all 
secular books, personal ornaments and elegant cloth- 
ing were to be searched out and seized, to form a pyre 
for the burning. Deep indignation possessed those 
who were compelled to give up their treasures; the 
storm was brewing which eventually burst with such 
fearful force. Guards were stationed around the 
pyre to prevent the precious goods from being 
withdrawn or stolen. When the torch was applied 
and the flame of the burning treasure arose in the air, 
it was greeted with a burst of sacred song and the Te 
Deum was chanted to the sound of trumpets and the 
clanging of bells. 

The news flew to Rome; not only the pope but the 
people of Rome were enraged. The pope threatened 
Florence with the Interdict. Savonarola again with- 
drew to San Marco, and from his pulpit hurled denun- 
ciation against the pope. He vowed that a wicked 
pope is no pope. Not content with that, he wrote to 
the great potentates, calling on them "to unite and 
depose a pope who is no pope, but a man who obtained 
the triple crown by fraud and perfidy, and is moreover 
an atheist." One of these letters was intercepted by 
the Duke of Milan, who sent it to the pope. He was 
furious in his rage, and issued a bull ordering the 
Signory to execute without delay the former decrees. 
The Signory appointed a commission of twelve men 
to act in the matter. The commission reported that 



8A VONABOLA. 193 

for the public good, it was necessary that Savonarola 
should retire to San Marco and refrain altogether 
from preaching. For the peace of Florence, Savona- 
rola consented to abide by the decision of the com- 
mission. The pope was content to have his great 
adversary silenced. 

Savonarola might have lived peacefully in his con- 
vent to the end of his days but for the contentions of 
the Dominican and Franciscan monks. The Francis- 
cans threw doubt and contempt on the prophetic in- 
spiration, claimed for the Dominican prior of San 
Marco; the Dominicans resented this and asserted the 
claim more confidently; the Franciscans challenged 
proof by the ordeal of trial by fire. The Dominicans 
eagerly accepted the challenge. Two ardently de- 
voted disciples of Savonarola, Buonvicini and Maruffi, 
besought the friar to permit one of them to act as his 
champion and pass through the fire in his stead. Each 
man was eager to be chosen. To content them the 
privilege was granted to both, and all things were put 
in order for the terrible ordeal, to which Buonvicini 
looked forward as to a triumph. 

On the public square two huge piles of combustibles 
were erected, one hundred and twenty feet long, with 
a narrow pathway between them. On the Saturday 
before Palm Sunday, 1498, the piles were set on fire. 
A vast concourse of people assembled early in the 
morning eager to witness the spectacle, some question- 
ing a favorable result, others claiming as certain the 
miraculous preservation of the men who represented 
the great friar. The Dominicans erected an altar on 
one side of the pile, the Franciscans on the other. In 
San Marco's, Savonarola celebrated mass. After the 
service the brethren formed in procession, preceded 
by Savonarola clad in his priestly robes, and bearing 
the Host. They moved in silence to the place of trial. 
On reaching the altar, as Savonarola placed the Host 
thereon, a burst of solemn song arose from the pro- 



194 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

cession. During- the chant Buonvicini knelt at the altar. 
The Franciscans kept silence, awaiting 1 the signal to 
advance to the trial. The confidence of the Domini- 
cans must have alarmed the Franciscans, for when the 
signal was given, instead of advancing* they began to 
clamor about magic and the arts of enchantment. The 
concourse took up the cry, some for, some against, and 
a scene of general confusion ensued. Unperceived a 
storm had gathered, and in the height of the up- 
roar it burst over the city, and the rain fell in 
torrents. When the storm abated, so that the voice 
of the Signory could be heard, they proclaimed that 
the sudden storm and drenching rain were the voice 
of God against the ordeal of trial by fire, and they 
dare not proceed in a trial against which God had 
manifested his displeasure. The crowd was ordered 
to disperse, and the Orders to retire to their convents. 

The dispersing crowd hissed and scoffed Savonarola 
for permitting his friends to become his champions. 
The excitement rose to such a height against him that 
he and his friends had to be placed under the protec- 
tion of a military guard. The next day San Marco's 
was assailed by an infuriated mob, which forced its way 
into the convent, though the monks made a desperate 
resistance. In the midst of the fight an order was 
brought by the guards from the Signory for the arrest 
of Savonarola, Buonvicini and Maruffi. The three men 
were brought out as bound prisoners. Still they would 
have been torn to pieces by the mob, but for the 
crossed halberds of the guards. 

When the pope learned what had transpired he or- 
dered that Savonarola should be conveyed forthwith 
to Borne, but the newly elected Signory, hostile to 
Savonarola, insisted that Florence had the right to try 
the prisoner. The change in the sentiment of Flor- 
ence pleased the pope. He allowed the claim, and 
commended the .Signory and people of Florence as 
true and faithful children of the Holy See. 



8A VOXAROLA. 195 

The i^risoners were not permitted any intercourse, 
not even the satisfaction of seeing one another. Their 
judges were chosen from among their enemies and 
their examination was by torture. But the extremity 
of torture could not induce Buonvicini to recant or to 
utter a word against his master. Maruffi was over- 
powered with terror at the sight of the rack, under the 
terrible agony of the torture his spirit failed, he re- 
canted, he acknowledged any charge brought against 
himself or his master. The intrepid spirit of Savona- 
rola failed under the torture of the rack, but when re- 
leased from the horrible torture he withdrew his recanta- 
tion and bewailed the weakness of the flesh. In the quiet 
of his cell, so long as writing materials were allowed 
him, he restated his doctrine in writing and continued 
his commentary on the psalms. 

When his death sentence was pronounced he heard 
it in calm silence, but begged to be permitted to see 
his two brethren before being taken back to his cell. 
The request was granted, the guard conducted him to 
the cell of Buonvicini, who rejoiced to a°:ain behold 
and to grasp the hand of his beloved master with 
whom on the morrow, through the terrible gate of fire 
he would pass into the spirit world. On reaching the 
ceil of Maruffi he found him in an agony of grief at the 
prospect of the fearful suffering, but the poor man 
grew calm in the presence of his fellow sufferer and 
father in the gospel. As he had done with Buonvicini 
so with Maruffi Savonarola prayed fervently and gave 
him his blessing. It was past midnight when he was 
led back to his cell. A friendly monk remained at his 
side during those last hours of his life; Savonarola laid 
his head on the lap of his friend and slept quietly till 
the morning. 

The place for the execution was the same that had 
been used for the trial by fire. A platform was raised 
and on it a huge triple cross was erected; at the 
foot of the cross faggots were heaped. When the 



196 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

prisoners were brought to the place of execution they 
were clad in sackcloth ; on the platform priestly robes 
were put on them only to be roughly torn off, as a 
ceremony of degradation. When Savonarola's friar's 
frock was jerked from off him, the bishop of Vassona 
spoke with a loud voice, saying, "I separate you from 
the church militant and from the church triumphant." 
Savonarola in a firm voice replied, " From the church 
militant, yes, — from the church triumphant, no; your 
power does not reach there." 

Buonvicini and Maruffi were bound to the outer 
crosses, Savonarola was then secured to the central 
beam, the faggots were fired and the flame soon arose, 
but a sudden gust of wind blew the flames away from 
the bodies. Weeping friends exclaimed, "A miracle!" 
But the wind soon ceased, the devouring flames leaped 
up, and the mob yelled. 

Before the sunset of that sad day the ashes of Sa- 
vonarola and of his two friends had been gathered up 
and cast into the Arno. 

Before that generation passed away Florence felt 
her shame and bewailed her loss, but, alas ! too late. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF SAVONAROLA. 197 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Characteristics of Savonarola. 

Under some aspects Savonarola was a great reformer 
and harbinger of the reformation, but unlike Luther he 
would have held the world in sacerdotal bondage ; he 
was essentially a monk, the " Incarnate Idea" would have 
striven to establish not only in Florence, but over 
Italy, yea, over the world, a sacerdotalism founded on 
uprightness of conduct and holiness of life, but es- 
sentially narrow and domineering*. 

Savonarola firmly believed in his divine mission as 
the prophet of the Lord and wrote " The Compendium 
Eevelationum" to substantiate his claim tothe prophetic 
office. In that work he teaches that " God reveals fu- 
turity to his chosen servants either by supernatural 
light infused into their souls, or by flashing- knowledge 
of things to come directly upon their minds, or by 
visions, or through attending' angels." Both mystic 
philosophers and mystic theologians apply the term 
extatics to a certain abstracted exaltation and illumina- 
tion of mind from which proceed visions and revela- 
tions. Many instances may be cited, notably the Ab- 
bot Joachim, St. Theresa and Baron Swedenborg. 
Possibly persons who are enthusiastic and intensely 
religious may, through continuous concentration of 
feeling and of thought upon the unseen and mysterious, 
be borne into such an ideal region, that the ideal be- 
comes so realistic that all doubt of the truth of their 
visions is removed, and along with this comes the con- 
sciousness of prophetic power. Or it may be that the 
mystics have crossed the border line of some one of 
the unexplored regions of human nature. 

13 



198 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 



CHAPTEE XXXIV. 

The Art King. 

The great artist, Michael Angelo, was the descendant 
of an old Florentine family which claimed imperial 
blood and were people of note in Florence as early as 
1250. When the artist returned from Bologna, he 
found that Florence was no longer a congenial home, 
but being- an ardent patriot, he was full of indignation 
against the unworthy descendants of the great Lorenzo, 
for attempting* to subvert that form of government 
which had been supported and administered hy their 
illustrious forefathers. 

The government of Savonarola, though nominally a 
republic, was more nearly allied to autocracy than 
to democracy, and it meant destruction to his beloved 
art. Had Michael Angelo remained in Florence, sooner 
or later there must have been collision between the 
two men ; for the artist would have claimed the right 
to have classical as well as scriptural subjects, not- 
withstanding* Savonarola's efforts to purge the city of 
heathen art. 

Michael Ang*elo, in the privac}^ of his studio, exe- 
cuted a sleeping* Cupid, but in the disturbed condition 
of the city he could neither exhibit, nor sell it. A 
relation of the great Lorenzo's advised Michael Angelo 
to give the marble an antique look, promising to see 
that the statue should be conveyed safely out of the 
city. 

The artist gave to the marble a weather-worn appear- 
ance, and true to his promise di Medici sent the statue 
to Borne on consignment to his agent there. When 
the statue was* placed on exhibition it excited great 
admiration, and by judges of art was regarded as a 



THE ART KIXG. 199 

genuine antique. An art-loving- cardinal bought it at 
a high price. The agent returned less than a fourth 
of the amount received to the artist in Florence. But 
rumors soon began to circulate in Rome that the cardi- 
nal's costly antique was in truth a modern work from 
Florence. The cardinal did not believe the rumor, but 
determined to investigate the matter, and sent a gen- 
tleman of his household to Florence, ostensibly in 
search of a sculptor competent to undertake an im- 
portant work in Rome. On reaching Florence, the 
gentleman made known the wish of the cardinal and 
requested a general attendance of the artists of Flor- 
ence at his apartments with specimens of their work. 
The artists were not slow to respond, taking with them 
specimens of their work. The young Angelo, but 
twenty-two years old, brought no specimen of his 
work; but when his time came, he took a pen and with 
a few bold lines drew a perfect human hand. The 
gentleman looked on in amazement at the readiness 
and excellence of the work, and begged to know what 
works the young artist had completed. Michael Angelo 
enumerated his finished works, including the sleeping 
Cupid. The gentleman was so impressed with the 
young artist that he requested him to remain. When 
alone the gentleman disclosed the true purpose of his 
visit, and told the young artist that all Rome had 
regarded his Cupid as a genuine antique, and that for 
the exquisite statue the cardinal had paid a very high 
price. Michael Angelo's indignation was at once aroused 
against the dishonest agent, and he resolved to go im- 
mediately to Rome and take measures to compel the 
man to pay him what he owed him. The gentleman 
urged him to go and to remain. "Eome," he said, "not 
Florence, is the place for such as you." The gentleman 
also pressed him to make his home with him. 

In the summer of 1496 Michael Angelo removed to 
Rome, and worked with tireless industry, step by step 
gaining the peerless height which he eventually reached. 



200 TEE JEW AND THE GEB3IAN. 

When his Pieta — Mary, mourning- over the dead 
Christ, whose head rests on her lap — was exhibited, the 
beholders were so impressed with the work that by 
universal consent the artist was called Michael Angelo 
the Divine. Of this group, Grimm says : — 

" The oftener it is contemplated the more touching 
does its beauty become, the purest nature, the noblest 
elements of the national Jewish expression and the 
unusual finish are linked with the wonderful harmony 
of the whole. Whatever previous to this work had 
been produced in Italy passes into shadow for some- 
thing was lacking either in idea or execution ; in this 
group both are completed and the result deserves to 
be called perfect." After completing this great work, 
Michael Angelo, on account of family matters, re- 
turned to Florence, and during his stay in that city 
he executed the group now known as the Madonna of 
Bruges, a life sized statue of Mary. She is seated, 
and enveloped in the softest drapery; the child Jesus 
is standing between her knees. This group ranks 
among his finest works, and during this visit to Flor- 
ence he executed his famous statue of David ; on this 
great statue he worked so diligently that he com- 
pleted it in less than three years ; and then the diffi- 
culty was, where should the great statue be placed ? 
It weighed 18,000 pounds. 

After the Signory had decided that it should stand 
on one of the pillars of the gate of the palace of gov- 
ernment, the difficulty was how to get it there. The 
difficulty was at last overcome by building around the 
statue a wooden framework or open room, in which 
the statue was placed in an upright, swinging position 
by means of strong ropes passing under the huge 
limbs of the youthful giant, the ends of the rope were 
secured to the upper beams of the room or huge cage. 
The entire side of the artist's workshop had to be 
taken down to g£t the great cage out. It was placed 
on fourteen oiled beams and these were drawn slowly 



THE ART KING. 201 

along* by means of pulleys. Four days were occupied 
in drawing it to its destination. The elevation of the 
statue was a matter of such anxious and general con- 
cern that it formed an epoch in the history of the city; 
for a long time the people made their reckoning from it. 

On his lofty pedestal David still stands in the ma- 
jesty of youthful beauty, in his right hand he holds 
the sling, his left hand is raised as though about to 
put a stone in it. From the day of his elevation to 
the present day, the people of Florence regard the 
young David as their genius loci. 

Michael Angel o's works in marble were numerous 
and all were great, but his crowning glory is his 
Moses, executed for the mausoleum of Pope Julius II. 
For forty years he worked on that superb statue, but 
in the meantime he executed groups and statues in 
marble and in bronze. All critics are agreed that his 
Moses is unsurpassed in ancient or in modern art. 
Michael Angelo's Moses is not a meek Moses, it is a 
grand, self-conscious Moses, conscious of the responsi- 
bility and of the power which God has entrusted to 
him, and conscious too, that he must gain self-mastery 
before he can be the leader and law-giver of his people. 

Moses is seated but seems on the point of rising, 
the tables of the law are under his arm, his hand is in 
his beard which falls in heavy wavy locks on his 
breast. " The Moses is the crown of modern sculpture, 
not only in id^a, but in the execution which is beyond 
comparison, and rises to a delicacy that could hardly 
be carried further." The force of character in the 
great law-giver is strikingly brought out in the expres- 
sion of his countenance, and as a whole, the statue is a 

"monument of art 
Unparalleled, — language seems to start 
From his prompt lips, and we his precepts own." 

The chief paintings of Michael Angelo are in the 
Sistine Chapel at Home, of these magnificent works 
the first is The Creation ; God is here represented as 
an idealized, venerable man with a full flowing beard. 



202 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

This superb figure is evidence of the belief of the 
artist that man is a personal as well as a spiritual 
image of Him who speaks in voice sublime and it is 
done. In the great painting God is brooding over the 
waters as He divides the light from the darkness, 
thereby calling day and night into being. The waters 
gather together in one place and the dry land appears, 
grass begins to put forth, then herbs and trees. The 
two great lights appear, the greater light to rule the 
day, the lesser light to rule the night. In the water 
moving creatures appear, and in the open firmament 
winged creatures &y. Jehovah is softly and slowly 
descending, angel hosts are thronging closely about 
Him, His mighty mantle is wide out-flowing, sur- 
rounding all the group. A drapery of violet-gray 
clouds falls closely around the divine form, through 
which the majestic beauty of that form may be clearly 
seen. Infinite power and almighty love beam from 
the sublime face. 

On the summit of a dark mountain which the Crea- 
tor is nearing, lies the beautiful body of Adam. God 
reaches out His right hand, and as though the divine 
motion conveyed a faint thrill of life, Adam raises his 
left hand ancf almost touches the* finger of God, who 
takes the uplifted hand and at once the prostrate body 
is quickened into life. With the most natural move- 
ment, Adam arises and stands on his feet. Then 
comes the bestowal of life upon Eve. Adam lies 
sleeping on his right side, Eve is standing back of 
him, slightly bending forward, her arms are raised 
and her hands clasped in prayer; in this great picture 
prayer is her first expression of life, Then follow in 
historic order, the temptation, the fall and the expul- 
sion from Eden. The scene of the temptation is full 
of deep thought; the conception is very different from 
that of Milton and much more profound. 

This wonderful picture of the Creation follows the 
course of Bible history on to the time of the prophet 



THE ART KING. 203 

Jonah, and intermingled with Biblical scenes are fig- 
ures from classic mythology; but whether from Bibli- 
cal or mythical sources, every delineation bespeaks the 
rare combination of poet and artist in Michael Angelo, 

The great picture was painted in the early prime of 
the artist's manhood. Thirty years afterward, on the 
side walls of the same chapel, he painted " The Last 
Judgment" on which he worked eight years without 
aid. Daring the progress of the work the master of 
ceremonies to the pope complained to his holiness of 
the many nude figures in the painting, declaring that 
it was improper to have such a crowd of naked people 
on the walls of the pope's chapel. The pope laughed 
at the man's prudery, but he submitted the complaint 
to the artist, whereupon Michael Angelo painted in 
the portrait of the man with the ears of an ass, and 
made him master of ceremonies to Satan. This great 
painting was completed near the close of the year 1541. 
It represents Christ with triumphant majesty in his 
countenance, seated on the throne of judgment. 
Around him are circles of angels, the circle nearest 
to him are calmly waiting in happy expectancy to 
hear their welcome sentence : Well done, good and 
faithful servants. The outer circle is excited, and that 
excitement spreads on all sides to the outer throng 
which is pressing toward the Judge, whose hands are 
upraised — eternal happiness on his right hand — 
eternal misery on his left. 

An eminent historian says : " For the Roman nations 
Dante built up a new heaven and earth by remodeling 
the forms of pagan antiquity for his Christian mythol- 
ogy, and by endowing with tangible life what before 
existed in intangible mysticism; but Dante's great 
work lived only in the imagination until Michael An- 
gelo embodied it in life-like forms." 

When the great artist was in his seventieth year he 
was called to exercise his wonderful genius and skill 
in a comparatively fresh field of art. The pope ap- 



204 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

pointed him architect and director of the building of 
the new St. Peter's. Michael Angelo was unwilling- to 
accept the appointment, but at the entreaty of the 
pope he consented to undertake the work, and he set 
about it with his usual energy. 

Under Julius III. a faction was raised against the 
artist on account of his rejection of inferior materials. 
This caused quite a heavy loss to those who supplied 
them, and these men won over some of the leading 
cardinals to their side. They succeeded the more 
readily, because the cardinals in charge of St. Peter's 
were piqued against Michael Angelo for not consult- 
ing them in reference to the changes he made in the 
remodeling the church. It was to them no small 
gratification to lay a complaint against him before the 
pope. The charges they brought were that Michael 
Angelo expended large sums of money without con- 
sulting them ; that he did not communicate to them 
the manner in which the building was to be carried 
on ; that he paid them no more consideration than if 
they had been ordinary and useless men. To satisfy 
the complaining cardinals the pope called a council, 
and caused Michael Angelo to be summoned to appear 
before the council to answer to the charges laid against 
him. The council met. The pope was present and so 
was the artist. The cardinals laid before the pope the 
further complaint that the interior of the church was 
made too dark by Michael Angelo's arrangement of 
the transverse arches. The artist was called to answer 
to this serious charge. He arose, saying: "I intend, 
your Holiness, to place three other windows above 
those already there." "You did not inform us of your 
purpose," replied the complainants. " I was not aware 
that I was under an obligation to do so," answered the 
artist, and continued, " and, moreover, I will not bind 
myself to give to your lordships, nor to anyone else, 
information of my intentions. Your office is to fur- 
nish money, and to see that it is not wasted. The 



THE ART KING. 205 

plan of the building- concerns me alone." Turning to 
the pope he said: "Your Holiness knows that I am 
not doing" this work for money ; that I have constantly 
refused payment; that I am doing* the work for the 
good of my soul. If it does not tend to that, I have 
expended time and labor in vain." 

"Have no fear of that," answer the pope, laying- his 
hand on the artist's shoulder. The complaint was dis- 
missed, and during- the pope's life no man dared to 
make further complaint against Michael Angelo. 

Under Pope Pius IV. complaints were laid against 
the artist of pulling down more than he put up. 
When Michael Ang-elo heard of the complaints, he ap- 
plied to the pope for dismissal from the post of chief 
architect of St. Peter's. He said to the pope: "Your 
Holiness knows that I have worked seventeen years 
without compensation, and what I have done during* 
that time is evident to all ; and permit me to assure 
you that the dismissal I ask will be a welcome release." 
The pope would not grant the dismissal, on the con- 
trary, he issued a Brief decreeing that the plans of 
Michael Ang-elo in the future w T ere not to be departed 
from in any particular. The untiring industry of 
Mchael Ang-elo for the succeeding three years strikes 
the student of biography with astonishment, — a man 
nearing ninety years working with a constancy and 
energy that would be remarkable for a man of forty- 
five. 

Though in the main St. Peter's is built after the 
design of Michael Angelo, the church is not a full 
expression of his design, his plan was in part frus- 
trated by the changes made after his death. Only the 
mighty dome is a complete expression of his match- 
less genius. 

In the latter part of the year 1563, failing strength 
compelled him to rest from work, and in February, 
1564, Michael Angelo departed this life, aged ninety 
years. 



200 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

Michael Angelo, the sculptor, the architect, the 
poet, and the painter, was the man in whom modern 
art reached its highest expression; and he was the 
man whose integrity, industry, frugality and gene- 
rosity proved that he had learned the great lesson 
that ''life is the finest of the fine arts." 

Michael Angelo was of a rather melancholy tem- 
perament; he loved solitude and simplicity. The 
brightest, the most cheerful part of his life were the 
five years of friendly intercourse with the gifted and 
sweet-natured Victoria Colonna. 

After the funeral obsequies in Rome were over his 
friends, fearing that Rome would claim the right of 
his interment, concealed the coffin containing his re- 
mains in a load of merchandise to be delivered in 
Florence ; the remains were in his native city before 
it was known in Rome that they had passed out of 
the gates of that city. On the arrival of the honored 
remains in Florence they were at once taken to the 
church of San Piero-Maggiore ; a gold bordered pall 
of black velvet was placed over the coffin and a golden 
crucifix on it. The artists gathered in a close circle 
around the coffin, which was to be removed to the 
church of San Oroce for interment. Under a star -lit 
sky the procession passed out from San Piero; the 
elder artists, with lighted torches, led the way; the 
younger artists bore the coffin; as they passed into 
the street a multitude of people joined in the proces- 
sion. On reaching the church of San Croce, the coffin 
was opened, silently the multitude filed into the 
church to gaze, for the last time, on the face of 
Michael Angelo. Though he had been dead more 
than two weeks there was not a symptom of bodily 
decay; his face was unchanged, looking just as it did 
when the spirit took its flight. Funeral orations and 
funeral honors continued to be paid to his memory 
for many months. 



THE ART KING. 207 

111 the same church in which Michael An^elo was 
buried are the remains of Dante and of Machiaveili. 
In the church of San Croce still stand the monuments 
of these three most gifted sons of Florence. 



208 THE JEW AND THE GERMAN. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

The Father of Modern History. 

Like Dante, Machiavelli was exiled in life and hon- 
ored in death. 

Like Michael Angelo, Machiayelli was an ardent 
patriot. His childhood was spent amidst the strug- 
gles and tumults with wiiich the factions of the nobles 
filled Florence. He was ten years old when the con- 
spiracy of the Pazzi was crushed, and with the enthu- 
siasm of boyhood he embraced the cause of the 
great citizen, Lorenzo. He grew to manhood under 
the happy administration of the great Lorenzo, but 
while yet a young man the death of Lorenzo left the 
republic exposed to internal jealousies and to foreign 
ambition. He seems not to have taken part in the dis- 
turbances of the times, but to have quietly pursued his 
course as secretary to one of the chief officers in the 
court of chancery. 

That he did not affiliate with the party of Savonarola 
is evident from an extant letter of his on Savonarola, 
whom he designates as " a man of daring assurance. 5 ' 
By quiet gradations Machiavelli rose to the manage- 
ment of foreign affairs and diplomatic negotiations 
which he conducted for fourteen years or until the 
government was overthrown by the Medicean party. 
His superior power in diplomacy caused him to be fre- 
quently employed by the new government on import- 
ant diplomatic missions, the satisfactory result of 
these missions won for him the confidence and favor 
of the government to such an extent that he w r as 
scarcely ever at home ; on returning from one mission 
he was directed to prepare for another. His active 
diplomatic life continued up to the time when the 
government was overthrown by the help of Spanish 
arms. 



THE FATHER OF MODERN HISTORY. 209 

The newly established government deposed Machia- 
velli. His indignation was aroused, and with burn- 
ing eloquence he denounced the encroachments of the 
nobles. Nor yet did, he spare the time serving Sig- 
nory; they had to smart under his sharp rebukes and 
keen sarcasms. By a coalition between the signory 
and the nobles they secured his arrest and imprison- 
ment as a disturber of the peace. While in prison, 
upon suspicion of his having knowledge of a newly 
discovered conspiracy against the government, he was 
put to the torture to compel him to confess what he knew 
of the plot and of those implicated in it. Under the 
terrible agony of the rack he preserved a patient en- 
durance and an unshaken fortitude; he continued to 
affirm he had nothing to confess and no accusation 
against others could be wrenched from his lips. After 
a long imprisonment in a loathsome dungeon he was 
liberated on the testimony of many witnesses to his 
entire innocence of any complicity with the conspira- 
tors. On being liberated he was banished from Flor- 
ence. Banishment from Florence from his public life 
was a hard fate to Machiavelli, but his complaints of the 
cruelty and injustice of the treatment he received 
availed him nothing. 

In his banishment he sought to soothe the bitterness of 
his soul, not by dissipation, but by manual labor; he gave 
his mornings to actual hard work on the grounds of 
his country home. Soothed and calmed by laboring 
with his hands he would go indoors, refresh himself 
in the bath, put on his best clothes and go into his 
library, or as he expressed it, " enter the august assem- 
bly of great minds among whom I spent my best hours." 
During his banishment he wrote c: The Prince," a work 
embodying the result of his observations upon the 
governments of his own time and of his study of the 
political principles of the ancients. The book was not* 
published until after his death ; it was then published 
in Rome under the sanction of Pope Clement VIII. Im- 
mediately it had an immense circulation , it was trans- 



210 THE JEW AND THE GEB3IAK 

lated into nearly all the languages of Europe, even 
into Turkish, and it soon aroused a general howl of 
indignation because of its open advocacy of duplicity 
in the theory of government. According to " The 
Prince " force and fraud are justifiable when they can 
be made a means of securing political advantage or 
national safety. 

The theory of government propounded in " The 
Prince " caused the name of Machiavelli to become a 
synonym for perfidious dealing. In the " Merry Wives 
of Windsor," the host of the Garter Inn asks, "Am I 
politic? Am I subtle? Am I a Machiaveir' But, 
taking the man in connection with his time, it seems 
an injustice to his memory. The leniency he advo- 
cates toward conquered people shows a different, a 
human side of his nature. 

Pope Leo X. encouraged the solitary man by his 
kindly regard and appreciation ; the pope requested 
him to prepare a plan for the remodeling of the gov- 
ernment of Florence, and he employed him on a pub- 
lic mission, thereby raising Machiaveili's hopes that an 
active public career was again opening before him. 
But his pleasant anticipations, his cherished hopes, 
were soon destroyed by the death of the pope, for 
whom he grieved deeply. Subsequently his grief was 
turned into joy by the longed-for information that his 
name was again enrolled among the citizens of Flor- 
ence, that he was again eligible to office. He returned 
to Florence happy in the belief that he should re-enter 
public life under favorable auspices. But he was 
doomed to disappointment, public feeling was against 
him, he was in the employ of the di Medici, who had 
again been expelled from the city. 

Before the return of Machiavelli to Florence, Car- 
dinal Julius commissioned him to write " The History 
of Florence ;" when that admirable work was completed 
and presented, the Cardinal Julius had become Pope 
Clement VII. The pope was greatly pleased with the 
manner in which his commission had been executed. 



THE FATHER OF MODERN HISTORY. 211 

Of Machiavelli's History of Florence, Dr. Hallam 
says : " This great work is enough to immortalize the 
name of Machiavelli. Seldom has a more giant stride 
been made in any department of literature than by 
this judicious, clear and elegant history; preceding- 
historical works, whether in Italy or out of it, had no 
claim to the praise of elegant compositions, whilst 
this history ranks among the greatest of that order. 
Machiavelli was the first who gave at once a luminous 
development of great events and their causes and con- 
nections. His view of the formation of European 
societies, both civil and ecclesiastical, on the ruins of 
the Roman Empire, had never been attempted before, 
though it may now seem to contain only what is 
familiar." 

The nature of Machiavelli, as manifested both in 
his life and his writings, suggest the notion of a live 
bundle of co- working antagonistic elements. He is 
generous and he is selfish; he is benevolent and he is 
cruel; he is a profound philosopher and he is a comic 
wit; he has the grave impartiality of the historian 
and the one-sided keenness of the satirist; he has the 
warmth of poetic feeling, and the cold, shrewd sagacity 
of the diplomatist. 

The man was the product of his times, and to under- 
stand him it is necessary to study the records of those 
times. But of the good influence of his writings on 
his native language there can be no question. It is 
similar to the influence of Addison on the English 
language. Machiavelli lived to see the last fatal 
struggle of Florence for liberty. The successful be- 
ginning of the strug-gle fired his patriotism, and with 
an impassioned love of country, he takes up the words 
of Petrarch : 

" Lo ! valor against rage 
Shall take up arras, and in the fight, 

Regain her ancient heritage. 
For patriot blood still warms Italian veins, 
Though low the fire, a spark at least remains." 



212 THE JEW AND THE GEB3IAN. 

Alas! the fire was so low that the commander-in- 
chief of the Florentine forces became a traitor to his 
country. Through him and his fellows in treachery 
Florence was vanquished by her ingrate sons. But 
had there been no traitors within her walls, had she 
come off victorious in her struggle, as at first seemed 
almost certain, it is scarcely probable that her freedom 
would have continued through even one lifetime, for 
the cancer of discord had so nearly eaten away her life, 
that there was not left enough of public spirit to 
maintain her liberty had it been achieved. 

A republic must be an impartial mother, her children 
must all fare alike, have equal civil rights and privi- 
leges, if she is to have length of days and continue 
to be a power in the world. A republic with privi- 
leged classes of hereditary nobility is as a fair apple 
with a destroying worm at the core. The weakness of 
the Republic of Florence lay in idleness, dissipation 
and the lack of civil equality among her people, one 
class on every possible occasion desiring, striving, to 
override all others because of the titled distinction 
which they inherited. 

The strength, the true glory of a Republic lies in 
the uprightness, the intelligence, the enterprise, and 
the industry of her people. In the continuous, Chris- 
tian development of the dignity and greatness of 
human nature, as the centuries roll onward, develop- 
ing out of the Past into the Future. 

Thus may the human family advance until they 
grow into one world-wide Republic, emancipated from 
war, intemperance, and all kindred evils; and attain- 
ing a further penetration into the secrets of nature 
which are the wonders of science, through purity of life, 
industry and patient seeking. And further, attaining 
just conceptions of the Bible religion pure and un- 
defiled, and a sacred sociality in "the roomy future, 
immense and palatial. " 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 089 299 3 % 




